Tuesday, March 18, 2008

I Love These Things!

All night, pretty much, I sat and slept wondering and dreaming about how much I LOVE the dirty sin that is smoking. I thought about the wondrous feeling of the first cigarette of the day, the glorious smoke that is had after a big meal, the settling smoke before lights out and I wonder why I would want to quit such a religious experience.
Then, I think about the health problems that can arise after years of habitual smoking. Emphysema and lung cancer seem to be the two main ones and also the ones that can scare me right into a non-smoking stature.
Plus, smoking is becoming a very hard thing to do here in Illinois since the ban was put in place at the beginning of this year disallowing smoking in public places. There is no smoking in bars, in restaurants, in offices or any other workplace, only fifteen feet away from any entrance to a public building.
It is getting tiresome have to bring a tape-measure everywhere I go now.
I work in an automotive shop where dust, grease, carbon-monoxide and other metal particles are floating on the air and into my lungs, but yet, smoking is prohibited. Everytime I see a vehicle running in a closed area with no place for the exhaust fumes to go but through my mouth or nose, I have to comment, "Thank God we can't smoke in here, that stuff will kill ya".
But, I digress. Smoking has gone from a hip happening in the past to a social shun here in the nineties and this new millennium. It is like I am all of a sudden to believe that the ban and tax hike on sales is put in place by the government to sway my tendencies towards a non smoking life.
I won't rant about how the government saw free money to help pay for their careless spending and decided to tax the holy crap out of a pack of cigarettes with unbelievable notions of doing this to prevent teens from smoking. Nor will I mention how the governor of Illinois was ready to tax cigarette sales more to pay for health care for children. It is all a bunch of crap, but I still will not get into that.
I am here to talk my way through a non-smoking life, which seems impossible. I want it to be possible, and I feel it will be possible this time, but still it seems to be unachievable. For some reason the bad reasons do not out-weigh the good reasons. The good reasons being only I like the taste and the feeling and the bad reasons obvious. But still, those good reasons enough to keep me opening a fresh pack - with my teeth on some days.
We are definitely creatures of habit. I imagine a smoke free ride to work, a cigarette without my morning coffee, a drink without lighting one up, and I already feel the nicotine withdrawals.
Yeah, I know, this is a mindset. Something a non-smoker would say.
My mindset is focused on quitting, which I know I can do. But smoking is not a mindset, it is pure and simply heaven on earth.

1 comment:

Angela said...

you just have an oral fixation, right? focus it elsewhere! :)