Quitting smoking

I started smoking when I was 21. I was at tattoo school, and I was bored of sitting inside during breaks. I guess I didn't have much imagination, or I would have gone and taken a walk or something, but I'm not that kind of person. I like to talk to my buddies, or just eat and read. Well, my buddies were all going outside to smoke on breaks, and a couple months into school I snapped and decided to go out and join them. I asked for a cigarette, and Jesse, who I had a crush on at the time, gave me one. Years later I learned the perverse joy of a smoker giving a cigarette to a non-smoker and watching them light up. Something about you feels bad, but not too bad. Mostly you enjoy the other person joining you in your self destructive little habit. It makes you feel less alone, less likely to be the one to contract the cancer or the heart disease or whatever. Anyway. I wonder if that is what Jesse felt.

I remember getting light headed and leaning against the outside wall, and the tattooed smokers around me laughing a bit.
It wasn't long before I was bumming from everyone. Then I had to start buying my own. Then I was smoking all the time, and blaming the smell on my friends, and then I met a guy while I was smoking, and I moved in with him, and he smoked in his apartment, and I smoked with him for a while. Eventually I quit, and then he quit. I stayed quit for a year, until I left him, and I wanted to smoke, so I did. Then I quit again a year or so later, for a different guy, and when he left me, I started yet again.

Now I'm with Jim, and we both smoke, and we smoke together. We tried to quit together once, for new year's, but it didn't last long. Now, the community college we both go to is ending spring term, and we're not going summer term. Fall term we're starting again, but all the campuses are going tobacco-free, so we wouldn't be able to smoke there anyway. So, we decided to quit over the summer.

Honestly, I don't know if Jim is ready to quit. I don't really think so, and I can't blame him. I'm 3 years older than he is, and I'm more worried about my health, so I don't want to put off quitting any longer. And if he doesn't make it, I'll understand. I worry about his health as much as mine. I have horrible visions of him getting cancer and dying. I care about him a great deal and I don't want him to suffer and die and I don't want to lose him. But you can't force someone to quit smoking. They have to be ready.
I think I'm ready. Again.

This time I'm on the patch. I feel pretty okay so far. Today is the first day. My arm with the patch feels kind of tingly and weird, maybe even a little numb but I guess this is all normal. I really don't feel the need to smoke right now, which is nice because I was jonesing all day until I decided to just bite the bullet and put it on. I've always gone cold turkey before. I hope this can help me break the habit for good.
I know it's mental as well. I know I'll have to change my thinking and be on guard. It's so hard to keep the urges at bay. I have referred to the addiction to nicotine as a demon, because it's unrelenting.

I have walked at night in the snow to get cigarettes. I have asked strangers for cigarettes, and taken them with shame when they acted irritated but gave me one anyway. I have smoked old butts from community ashtrays. I've seen half-smoked cigarettes on the ground and wanted to pick them up. I've spent my last dollars on cigarettes. I've gone to bed at night, chest tight and phlegmy, thinking, tomorrow, no more cigarettes, I quit, and then I wake up and think, I need some fucking cigarettes. I've been late to class because I jumped off the bus to get cigarettes. I've avoided hugging my family because I smelled like smoke. I've subjected friends to second hand smoke, and second hand whining about needing a smoke. I've spent I have no idea how much money. I've called certain cab drivers simply because they let me smoke in their cabs.

I have loved smoking, and hated it too. I spit after every drag because my mouth tastes like shit. My teeth are yellow. I can't breathe deeply. My singing voice is shot. My skin is lined and unhappy looking.

I hate it.
I hope I'm through. Wish me luck, again.