I've Quit Smoking... Almost

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I've been trying to quit smoking for years. And I feel that this time, I'll be successful.

I started smoking right after high school. Well, technically, I knew how to smoke even when I was a kid. Blame it on my father. He's a heavy smoker. He'll ask me to light a cigarette for him while he's tinkering equipment or anything that needs fixing at home. And that's how I learned how to smoke.

I started to smoke on my own on my first years in college. Some of my college friends smoke, too. That resulted to my increased addiction to smoking. We'll spend our free time in between classes to smoke, eat or even drink. Yeah, I was really a bad girl back in my younger years.

I started smoking Philip Morris, that long, minty cigarette that smokers call the "prosti yosi", or cigarette of prostitutes 'coz it's long and "cheap". When my nanay found out that I've been smoking, she slapped me and made me promise not to smoke again. She tried to get my dad's thoughts on my smoking habit but he couldn't really say anything to me 'coz he's really to blame for unconsciously (yeah, right) teaching me how to smoke.

I switched to Marlboro Lights Menthol (green) after a few months. I still wasn't allowed to smoke at home but I cover my tracks whenever I do when my nanay's at home. I was shocked when one night, my dad threw something at me. When I bent down to get it, I almost fainted when I saw that it was a pack of Marlboro cigarettes. Yes, dear readers, he gave me a pack of cigarettes.

That act prompted me to continue smoking at home. Whenever I have friends around to drink, I smoke openly. But, out of respect to my nanay, I'll hide it when she's around. She wasn't able to stop me from smoking 'coz I get to smoke at school and when my friends and I go out to drink.

When we moved to our newly-renovated house in Navotas, I got a larger room with 6 wide windows. This enabled me to smoke freely. I became more gutsy with my smoking. There are even times when my nanay would see me smoking or smell it. She stopped telling me to stop smoking. I guess she got tired and just continued reminding me of the health risks. But that didn't stop me.

I almost became a chain-smoker when I started working for call centers. The stress I get from taking in call after call, dealing with difficult customers, trying to stay up and alert the whole night, made me smoke more. Most of my friends/colleagues are smokers, too, so I have buddies to smoke with. Even when we started calling our yosi breaks "cancer breaks", it didn't affect us at all. And it even increased when I got promoted to QA and Team Leader 'coz my break schedules are open. I can go out to smoke anytime I want.

Almost 11 years have passed and I'm still a smoker. My partner, Mai, has been trying her best to help me completely stop smoking. And, for the first time in my life, I believe I'll be successful in keeping myself from puffing that menthol stick of slow death.

Mai has been keeping track of how many sticks I've smoked in a day ever since we lived together in one roof. She doesn't smoke and she wants me to stop not just because of the effect on my health but the effect on her, too.

I've tried my best to minimize my smoking. From 5-10 sticks a day, I was able to cut it down to 3-5 sticks when we were still in Manila. When we're just at home, I only smoke around 2-3 sticks because our room was air-conditioned and it's closed. I know, I know. I feel like I'm suffocating by just the thought of it.

When we moved here to Cebu, I started to really take quitting seriously. No one smokes in Mai's household so even a li'l stench of cigarette smoke will be noticed by her mama. And quitting was one of my resolutions upon deciding to move here to Cebu.

Now, I can go a day without even a stick to smoke. If I do smoke, I make sure I only do it once in a day. There were days when I smoked twice but that's it. I want to completely get rid of this habit.

You might be wondering how I did it... from 5-10 sticks a day to 1 or even none per day. Well, it's all about mind control. I noticed that I always crave for a smoke everytime I'm stressed, upset, or when I'm drinking or right after a meal. Now, everytime those triggers occur, I think of something else, or I busy myself with different things. I also ask myself, "What do you REALLY get from smoking?", a question that Mai always asks me whenever I want to smoke.

Before, I had a lot of excuses. I guess I was so lazy to think about quitting. I try to get away with it by simply saying that I'll quit eventually, that it's really too damn hard to quit because I got addicted to the smoke and the high I get after each cigarette stick. But, really, I believe I was insecure with myself... that I don't have enough courage and self-control to actually quit smoking altogether.

Now, I believe I can. And this is one major reason why whenever I want to smoke, I just think of how bad I'll smell right after. I start to hate the stench of smoke on my hair and clothes. And whenever I indulge, I get easily tired of puffing and will throw away the half-smoked yosi. I psyched myself into hating everything about smoking.

I want to thank Mai for not quitting in giving me a hard time whenever I want to smoke (LOLz). She plays a big part in this whole quitting thing. She'll continuously ask me "Why do you want to smoke?!" (Baket mo gustong magyosi?) when I feel like smoking. But, she gives in everytime because I throw tantrums or I lovingly convince her to let me smoke. Hehehe. Still, she really made me think about the effect of my smoking to myself and to her. I love her so I don't want my addiction to affect her, too.

I also want to thank my Nanay for always reminding me to quit smoking. Everytime we talk about my health, she'll always tell me to stop smoking. Now that we're far from each other, she sends me text messages reminding me to minimize or quit smoking.

And, lastly, I want to thank God. I asked Him to help me get rid of this addiction. And I believe He's giving me strength to gradually quit smoking.

My goal is to completely be off smoking by 2009. I hope I can accomplish this. I really want to lead a healthy life, starting with quitting smoking. Next, losing weight. It's gonna be twice the effort to lose weight once I've completely quit smoking so I hope me and Mai can really push each other to reach our goals.

WISH US LUCK!!