Smoking Cigarettes Analysis

For this assignment, I gave up smoking cigarettes. The first day we were supposed to give up our substance, I smoked six cigarettes. My strange rationale for not quitting when I was supposed to was that cigarettes are expensive and that I did not want to waste any of them. I also rationalized that as I had been smoking almost a pack of 20 cigarettes per day, that taking a step down on the first day would also be good progress towards my goal of quitting. The first real day of quitting, August 26th, I learned a lot about myself. I virtually refused to wake up the first day of quitting nicotine because I knew that as soon as I got out of bed I would “need” a cigarette. When I finally got out of bed around 10:00 a.m., while I desired a cigarette, I discovered that the craving …show more content…
To make matters worse, my scheduled therapy appointment got canceled as my therapist had become ill. Substance abuse class brought new challenges, watching videos of addicts using brought up images of my own use, and a fear of the nightmare that had once been my life. I had always felt lucky to rarely have cravings for opiates and my five-year sobriety date was only a couple days away. I so desperately wanted to be free of nicotine’s grasp by September 8th, as a gift to myself, but I was on the verge of breaking. My mind was constantly on opiates, not on the nicotine, which put me into a panic. I am very open with my husband so after grocery shopping on September 7th, Jeremy pulled into a smoke shop and bought me a functional electronic cigarette with a bottle of low nicotine juice. After taking a few drags, my flashback cravings dissipated. I had made it almost two weeks without nicotine and the frustration at “failing” myself was high. Yet, it was as if every hit of nicotine calmed my opiate anxieties and the accompanying