Jesus. Monday will be three weeks without a cigarette. Four days without nicotine. It’s a wonder that I haven’t had a real breakdown. My app says that I got 24 hours of my life back already. And I have saved $200. Its adding up. 

And now I have some mental capacity to try to understand why I smoked. And it’s simple, it’s an escape from discomfort. Everytime I pick it up the habit again, it’s been after a conflict or abuse. Everytime I light back up after quitting, it’s because someone hurt me. 

I get hurt and I relapse. 

Now that’s something I can process and work with. Why do I go there (cigarettes) instead of to something else, hopefully healthier? That’s the question I am now asking myself, and it’s a deep dig. After twenty years of smoking, there are layers to dig through for these answers. 

After a relapse, I use cigarettes to paint every single moment of boredom, stress, anxiety, or even happiness with color. An hour at a time. Until the next one. Sometimes without thought. Just the hourly motion of lighting up.

I’m fucking done with the cycle. I am not going into my forties as a smoker. And I am going to do my absolute best to never use nicotine again. 

I have successfully avoided 321 cigarettes in 16 days. That’s probably equal to thousands of cravings that I have consciously said no to. I am doing this. It’s working. That’s thousands of wins.

I should write a blog I told myself. So here it is.

All my love for people suffering with addiction,

-Tukayote ❤️

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