Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.

It's been a stressful week. There have been a lot of cigarettes involved.

What would I do if I was stressed out and couldn't smoke? I once lived with a recovering alcoholic and noticed that among his AA friends almost everybody had replaced their addiction to alcohol with an addiction to something else. For many it was smoking, coffee was also popular, and some were sugar freaks. Or some combination of the above. I remember having a movie night with a bunch of the guys and we went to 7-11 beforehand and picked up an obscene amount of candy and ice cream.

I've tried to quit before, and I've had varying degrees of success. The first time my parents found out I legitimately tried to quit, and did for about three months. Until finals started. There was just no way, especially with my tendency towards procrastination, that I could make it through those agonizing few weeks without smoking. It's stress that makes me need a cigarette. Other times, it's certainly enjoyable, but a stressful situation makes me pick up and light a cigarette without even thinking about it.

So however long I've stopped for, if something stressful enough happens nothing will stop me from smoking a cigarette. It's a very intense feeling of focus, like there may be other things to think about but they don't really matter until I have a cigarette. I can't really think about anything else until I have a cigarette. Once the idea has hatched in my mind, it's hard to stop it.

And I'm pretty sure there are always going to be stressful situations.

I've been livin' on coffee and nicotine...

Saturdays have become the bane of my existence. I work at a restaurant and though I hold out hope every time I open the schedule book, every week for the past three months I've been scheduled this Saturday double. Doubles on the weekends are the worst because it's often steady all day or there's a late rush which means I almost never get a substantial break. There's always time to smoke - because I swear even if the restaurant was full and the owner was sitting at the bar, I would go out for a cigarette between shifts. There's just no way I can make it through the twelve or thirteen hour day without one (/several). Saturdays I often let myself have a few extra, because damn.

I work at a very unique restaurant in that almost nobody smokes. The first three restaurants I worked at, everybody smoked. In fact it was probably getting my first serving job at a brewpub in South Denver when I was 19 that really solidified my status as a smoker. During Pregame (meeting before the shift to brief everyone on specials and 86s) we would all sit at the bar smoking (also, since it was a brewpub, the staff would split a pitcher of beer, excluding my sad underage self). I have some fond memories of smoke breaks at that restaurant, and at the others. Most of the time managers were sympathetic to us, but at the restaurant I work at now, we're not even allowed to smoke while we're clocked in at all. Though that doesn't stop me most of the time. I'd never go while I had a table but after my last one pays out I'm out the back door like a bat out of hell. I'm pretty sure my manager knows I do this, and a lot of other girls would get yelled at if they tried it, but luckily I do my job and she cuts me some slack.

So the smokers are me, my roommate, the bartender, and a couple of the kitchen guys. It seems to be a pattern that the people who smoke are also the people who get into all sorts of other trouble. Not to categorize tobacco as a gateway drug, but I feel like if you are reckless enough to decide to start smoking, you're probably reckless enough to do a lot of shit. Personally, I'm stuck on probation for another 9 months because I'm reckless enough to get caught driving drunk. Twice. On the upside, I've read more than once that smokers are always the most interesting people in the room. Because we have LITTLE CONCERN FOR DEATH!

Well, not. Which is why I'm trying to quit. Thinking about quitting. Writing about quitting in order to explore my desire to smoke. Yeah that's it.

Because writing about quitting is easier than doing it.

I'm going to quit smoking.

Eventually.

It's been years since the first time I thought that maybe I should quit, but that thought likely occurred during a cigarette and was likely followed not too long after by another. I don't smoke much; For the longest time, 4 or 5 years, I kept myself to five a day. This has only recently changed. I'm now up to 6 or 7, and for a moment before I light up those I probably could skip I ask myself if this is really necessary, and the answer is always no, but regrettably this is usually moments after I've already taken the first drag.

I'd like to think I never would have started if I thought I wouldn't be able to stop (easily, and whenever I wanted), but I started smoking in a time of my life where the future was really only a vague, distant concept, and it didn't really make much difference what happened then as long as I was having fun now. I smoked my first cigarette in a club called Legends in downtown Denver (the fact that you could smoke inside kinda dates me) with my best friend Dani and a hot Russian guy I'd taken French class with in high school, Sergei. I'd started college a few months earlier and had quickly developed a fondness for pot, and when I lit it up in between my thumb and forefinger Dani laughed and said "It's not a joint, Kat". The only reason I really can think about for choosing to smoke that first cigarette was my newly-found, freedom-loving Fuck It attitude (which, oddly enough, got me into kind of a lot of trouble).

The hardest thing about quitting is going to be that I don't really want to quit. I know that I should quit. But I'm just now beginning to reach a point in my life where what I should do seems important. What I want to do usually still wins. Would I like to quit smoking in 2010? Yeah, sorta. But I like smoking. I like smoking while crusing around in my car, after a big delicious meal, or after satisfying sex (um, or unsatisfying sex, I guess). I love the feeling of stepping outside after a long hard shift at work and lighting up. I love having a cocktail and a cigarette on the patio on the summer. I LIKE IT ALL.

But I guess I owe it to myself and my mom and my lungs to try. At some point.

"But then I do think New Year's resolutions can't technically be expected to begin on New Year's Day, don't you? Since because it's an extension of New Year's Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system." - Helen Fielding