I'm quitting smoking for about the third time. By "third time", I mean the third time I've seriously attempted to quit forever. I started smoking when I was 13. I remember I used to throw up after smoking sometimes. I guess my poor little lungs couldn't handle it. As cliche as it sounds, obviously I wanted to be super cool and act older. Not gonna lie, it worked marvelously.

I'll be 20 in a few weeks. I am a very addicted smoker. I don't know when this began, but I know when I knew it would never be easy to quit. About a year or so ago, I seriously wanted to quit smoking for the first time. I was very mentally motivated. I decided one night that when I woke up the next morning, I wouldn't smoke from that moment on. I woke up and obviously the thought of a cigarette crossed my mind several times. But the amazing thing was, I was so mentally motivated that I could ignore those thoughts as they came. By 5 PM, things were not as smooth. I had a headache that can't even be described. I NEVER get headaches. Quite literally every movement my head made produced pain that seemed to stem from every possible place in my brain. I can't imagine having a worse headache, ever, under any circumstances. I couldn't get up from sitting on the bed. Somehow, I barely walked the five minutes to get nicotine gum. Reading back on this, I know I sound like a whiny little girl, but let me assure you, the description doesn't even come close to describing the actual horrendous pain. Anyway, the gum didn't do much to help. By 11 PM I was puking up black bile. This went on for a couple hours, I think, and then I wanted to go to bed. It was sometime in the summer, and the temperature was probably close to 20 degrees. I slept in sweatpants, a sweatshirt and socks, with a comforter, and I was still shaking in a cold sweat. The next day I woke up and my headache was close to or equally horrendous. I had work at 5:15 PM that day and I remember not even questioning that I'd need to call in sick.

I did quit successfully that time. For a number of reasons, I started again. Not all at once, but sometime between breaking up with the gremlin I was dating and the beginning of the following summer, I was once again a full-on smoker.

The second time I planned on quitting was actually around October of last year. This time I was less motivated and my period of being smoke-free was very short lived. Can't expect a heavy-drinking first year student who's highly addicted to cigarettes to quit at the beginning of the school year!

This time, my reason for quitting is simple: I've given up alcohol for a month, which gives me prime time to quit cigarettes. Much of the reason quitting was so hard in the past was the fact that I drink so much. Without alcohol, my ability to deny tobacco was much better. Today is the second official day I quit. How do I feel? Like shit. All I can think about is going to buy a pack of smokes. I really don't care about disease at all, not even a little bit. I just wanna have a coffee and slowly smoking a delicious, flavourful Belmont.

No happy ending yet, I'll keep you posted.

Sincerely, A cigarette-deprived, depressed woman