When you take to smoking, you begin to notice the quiet moments, the lulls in your day, and punctuate them with a cigarette. Got an hour to kill before class starts? Have a cigarette! Feel like reading a book outside? Have a cigarette! It’s as if you’re on a schedule, but a situational one rather than a time-based one.
I live with a smoker. In comparison to my two-a-weekday pattern, where they’re spaced out by ten to twelve hours, he is a super-smoker, up to a pack a day when he’s really stressed. There was a time not too long ago when I used to give him hell for going over four in a day. He doesn’t smoke in the house, but there’s no way we can hide his habit from Lor — that many cigarettes in that short of a time will linger on you, even if you’re outside and pacing.
I can’t say that this is my first dalliance with nicotine. On my eighteenth birthday, I went to the Marvin Road Safeway and bought five dollars’ worth of scratch tickets and a pack of Marlboro Menthol Lights, neither working out for me very well. I tried starting up again when Lor was young — I was working a thankless job and stressed and needed an escape — but I couldn’t keep the ashes from blowing into my car and ended up passing them off on a friend.
Yesterday, I bought the wrong pack once again, and since I don’t particularly care for them (not menthol lights/Fantasias, weird taste — although they smell fantastic before they’re lit, bad association) I passed them off to Nick and decided that I wasn’t going to replace them. Do I enjoy smoking? Every now and then. Am I addicted yet? I don’t think so. Does it make sense to buy another pack? No, especially considering our budget.
This will be interesting, though, seeing that I started back up due to stress and boy, today is one stressful day. I’m curious to see whether or not I’ll show signs of withdrawal. So far, it’s been almost a day, and I’m reluctant to label my headache a symptom, mainly because I’m having the WORST DAY EVER, so yeah. We’ll see.