Know what you mean about that soapbox man....I swore to myself that if I made it this time I wouldn't be one of those "Nicotine Nazie" type people but after realizing what this shit was doing to me I can't help but preach to anyone who'll listen.
I actually was 18 the first time I lit up. Highschool graduation party, one of my buddies bought a bunch of cigars and passed them around. None of us were smokers but we all basically said the same thing--what the hell one can't be that bad--and lit up. I'm still in contact with most of the guys who were there that night and I firmly belive that was when 3 of us became addicts (more on that word later).
11 years and approximatley $15,000 later (holy fucking shit it makes me sick just to type that) two things made me quit.
The first was the call I made to my grandmother on her birthday. I noticed she was talking kind of funny and asked her if she had a cold. Turns out it was actually the oxygen tubes up her nose. She was a chainsmoker for as long as I can remember and the Emphysema fairy had finally paid her a visit. She's going to spend the next several years slowly suffocating to death while we watch.
The other reason was that I was finally able to take an honest look in the mirror and admit to myself that I was, in fact, an addict. I did not have a bad habit, I had a serious chemical dependancy problem.
I'm convinced that the second reason above is why people have such a hard time quitting this. Once you read up on Nicotine and it's effects on the body you realize that what you, as a smoker, are doing is really no different then a crackhead lighting up his pipe or a heroin junkie sticking a needle in his arm. People don't like to admit that, their doctors try to sugarcoat it, but that horrible "A" word is what you are and it's all you're ever going to be unless you can nut up and take ownership of it.
I tried to quit a few times before using the patch, the gum, those little hard candy type things....the idea of quitting an addictive drug by utilizing a different delivery system for it is just laughable. Look, I quit smoking crack by snorting cocaine.....
Chantix does work though. It messes with your blood pressure a bit and the lucid dreaming can be a bit much, but it works. 3 days into the first week (you're allowed to smoke for the first seven days) I was down from a pack a day to half a pack with no real effort. I emptied my last pack on July 3rd, 2011 at 9:00pm, and by then I was only lighting up out of sheer habit. The drug blocks the nicotine receptors in your brain from absorbing their favorite thing so you don't get a buzz no matter how much you smoke.
Stupid soapbox somehow found it's way under my feet again....
