Smokey Smokey

This posting probably won't be that interesting. It is just going to be me boasting and celebrating an achievement that I'm pretty proud of having accomplished.

Today is an anniversary for me. Five years ago tonight I smoked my last cigarette. I was sitting in a bar next door to the Royal George Theatre in Chicago after rehearsal for a show I was stage managing. It was a Wednesday night, so it was just me and the bartender/manager sitting there talking, and I was a regular since I had been doing a show next door for close to a year.

I had been walking to the El that morning, smoking a cigarette of course, and just kind of decided that I would finish the pack I had and be done with it. I really hadn't enjoyed smoking for a long time, I was just feeding the addiction. Don't get me wrong, for years I absolutely loved smoking. Smoking after a good meal (or any meal), smoking while waiting for the bus (in Seattle) or El (in Chicago), smoking after sex, smoke breaks at work, smoking in an under crowded bar while loading money in a jukebox and with a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other. It was paradise for years. But for a while I just wasn't enjoying any more than one or two of the twenty smokes I was having each day. For those of you who have never smoked, that's how many are in a pack. That was my usual, a pack a day for about eleven and a half years.

I didn't quite live up to my goal I set for myself that morning. I had two more after I finished my pack. I bumbed them from the bartender while I sat there talking to her. Usually not the best sign of success when you break your goal on the very first night. I had tried to quit several times before and that was how I always started again, falling off the wagon once and then just saying "screw it" and start smoking a pack a day again.

But this time that didn't happen. I stuck to it, and now I haven't smoked in five years. I can't believe it has been that long. The first six months seemed like an eternity, but the last four and a half years have just kind of flown by with very few times that I've ever wanted one. I don't even like to be in smokey bars now. I love that so many places have laws against smoking in bars, including the last two places I've lived. It's actually hard to be in a smokey room for me now. Maybe that means I really have kicked it for good.

Damn, I'm proud of myself.