My Smoke-Free Count Up

You may have noticed the ‘count up’ in the sidebar of my site (which started running as of 12:00 AM on September 19, 2007). And you may have wondered, “What’s this?” Simply put, it’s counting up from my last cigarette. Or rather the first day following my last cigarette. The time had come for me to take all of that talk I’ve been doing lately about getting healthy to a serious level. This began with me trying to quit smoking and joking to friends, “I think I need a bigger wagon because I keep falling off the one I’ve got.”

That joke was hiding a reality that was starting to really scare the hell outta me that went beyond cigarettes. The fact is I can’t just cut back on my vices. This is because I don’t ever really need to worry about getting behind the wheel to get home. So when I’m out, having just a drink or two is not even a thought in my head. I don’t get so out of control that I get into fights or hit by cars or arrested, but perhaps it’s worse that I can simply drink and drink until I go home.

At least if I were to have something stop me, I’d do it less. Since I don’t, it’s something that has been eating away at my health. It’s a cycle that goes booze to butts to bad food. If I drink I will smoke. Smoking has been a bitch of a monkey on my back since I was a teenager. It’s often hard to resist the pull of nicotine but with my better judgment impaired, the smoke fills my lungs more freely.

Drinking and smoking make me hungry. Not wanting to—or not being able to—find healthy eating options while stumbling around in the night makes for bad choices. So it’s gonna be a hamburger or bad deli sandwich or whatever I can scrounge out of my cupboard washed down with a bottle of some sugar filled, teeth and gut rotting soda. And with all of this comes my expanding gut and declining health.

So how did this lead to my Smoke-Free Count Up? Every so often, I would undertake what I call a Sobriety Challenge; a period of time in which I allow my body to detox from booze and bad food. However, smoking never seemed to make it into the equation.

In the past I would say, “Thirty days,” or “two weeks,” or whatever with no drinks. This time around I’m saying—regarding the smoking anyway, “Let me just do this and see how far I can take it.”

So now I have a bigger wagon. Wish me luck!