Strike One.

I didn't even make it five days.  Right now I should be feeling really bad, but I don't.  On my way home from work I stopped to buy cigarettes.  I've had two, and really, compared to how I have felt for the last two days, but especially since about 2:30 today, I feel normal.  For the first time in nearly five days I feel normal.  Normal in the sense that I feel like me.  Here is the thing about this quitting business.  I've been a smoker for my entire adult life.  I really don't know how to be without them.  I am still committed to figuring it out, but I've come to another realization.

They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  Each time I have tried quitting I've done about the same thing, except for my brief brush with Wellbutrin in the mid 1990's.  That stuff just made me crazier than I normally am when I try to quit.  So my M.O. is to get really disgusted with myself as a smoker, and fume about it for a few weeks, or months, and then decide to quit, and stick on a patch and put on a brave face and see how long it takes for me to crack.  This time, not too long.  Sorry about that to all who are rooting for me. I did have the added help of the Nicorette in addition to the patch, that but that didn't get me there either.  So what will it take to get this quitting thing to take for me?  Apparently will power and the threat of disappointing a lot of great people aren't enough. 

I'm supposed to get a new routine in order to really accomplish quitting.  The problem with that is, I hate change.  That could be the root of this entire inability to quit.  I really, really hate change.  Really.  A lot.  When I am not smoking I feel like a stranger in my own skin, in my house, in my own brain. 

I'll ponder a bit a longer.  A lot of people have quit.  There must be a way that will work.  Maybe Chantix, but my past experience with Wellbutrin, and that whole warning on the label about causing thoughts of suicide, have me a smidge spooked about it.  I'll figure it out.  Don't give up on me yet.