Here we go again, and I hate doing this. I hate going through the list of reasons of why I should quit smoking for the simple fact that I've done it too many damn times. I was going good for two months. Then, I went on a cruise with a neurotic, self-centered, shallow person, KLF. (Of course, I obviously am not friends with her now, but that's another story... Remind me that I have to eviscerate her in another entry, would you?) The cruise was simply white-trash daycamp on water. I was actually embarassed to be a passenger, as I learned from talking to much of the wait staff that they *hate* the passengers. In any event, I ended up smoking again: partly because of stress, partly because fucking KLF was always like, "Hey, wait for me to finish this," waving around her lit cigarette. Or she'd want me to walk down to the ship store where she could buy cigarettes.
Now that I think about it, I wouldn't be surprised if she deliberately sabotaged my quit... Trust me, she's such a cunt she'd do that (and worse) to people she considers her friends.
I'm getting sidetracked: this entry is going to list...
Why I am Quitting Smoking
The last thing an unemployed person (i.e., ME) should be doing is frivolously wasting money when there's no source of income to replace what's spent. At $5.00+ a pack x 5 or 6 packs a week, that's $25+ or $30+ bucks a week that I am burning away. So, I could really just set fire to $123 dollars at the start of each month. And this figure doesn't take into account how I am sometimes generous, (or a dumbass) and buy packs for my friends.
Screw all the Surgeon General's warnings on my packs of smokes, the government WANTS me to smoke. Smokers help the government's budget:
The United States Government has had a strong vested interest in tobacco production and dissemination. In 1984 tax revenues generated from tobacco products exceeded 6 billion dollars annually. The government owned close to one billion dollars of surplus tobacco. Even with this strong vested interest, the report that year claimed that over 300,000 Americans died prematurely from cigarette smoking that previous year.
And you think anyone's going to lower cigarette taxes? Not when they're raking in this much money. The government is exploiting our addiction so it can grow its budget, and do things like bribe Chinese officials, hide all its cover-ups, or start wars in countries where dark-skinned people live, instead of finding cures for cancer... which we're setting ourselves up for to be recipients.
The health thing. It bothers me. This is a 14 year old habit that I picked up in puberty. For all I know, I could've been much taller if I hadn't smoked. I certainly would've been able to run better... But it's been a week and 2 days since I got this SARS-like cold, and I am still coughing. A bout of coughing up plegm gets triggered even when I'm not doing anything. Do I really want this?! I *know* it's all from smoking, too. I need to remember the way the post-nasal drip would slide down the back of my throat, and I could feel it in my sinuses when I'd constrict my larnyx to scrape it off and hack it up. That feeling makes me want to be treated like a lame horse and ask for a bullet in the head. I need to remember the way I freak out when the glands under my jaw start getting bulbous, and I can feel them get raspy each time I swallow. I need to remember how much I hate using warm salt water to gargle with, which makes my throat feel better by pulling off all the slimey snot coating it inside... I watch it ooze down the drain and want to vomit. I need to remember the uncomfortable trips to the grocery store that I have to make, for tissues, juice, medicine and lozenges--because there aint no one else around here who's gonna do it--and how I stand pitifully in line with a drippy nose and a puffy face, grossing out the cashier. I need to remember the disgrace of piles of tissues in my trashcan, mostly from me spitting phlegm into them, like many an old man does when sitting on a park bench. I need to remember these things.
If I don't, all I'm gonna hear from people who don't smoke is "You should quit."
I feel like such a loser when I visit my parents, and at night I have to sneak out of their house to go smoke. My dad will sometimes accompany me, either to keep me company or to silently shame me for still being stuck with the habit: he smoked for 40 years and quit cold turkey. No gum, no NRT, and certainly no Wellbutrin.
My apartment fucking reeks when my friends come over. All of us smoke. I don't have any non-smoking friends. Hell, even the people I dislike are all smokers. But when my friends come over, they smoke lots. They turn my dirty dishes (which I sometimes leave laying about) into makeshift ashtrays because passing around the actual ashtray is annoying. And when they leave, I have cigarette butts and ash to clean up, all amidst the haze that hangs in the air. I especially didn't like it when they'd visit me during my illness, and *still* smoke. Which of course, made me want to smoke too, even though I was hacking like I had pneumonia.
All of these things, I need to remember them. Because in the next 2 days, I'm going to be panicky, anxious, irritable, and restless from withdrawl--which never would've happened if I hadn't smoked on the cruise in November.