Coffee Black ... Cigarette ...

Start this day like all the rest …” A little Don Williams there for any of you country music fans.

NOTE: I wrote this post one week ago, just before my trip to the hypnotist & journey into the bloggosphere ~

Actually, I put two sugars in my coffee but the sentiment’s the same. As of now I am in my same morning routine. I have a half a pack of cigarettes, a half a pot of coffee, I’m sitting at my computer in bath robe and slippers and taking frequent breaks to go out on the deck and smoke a cigarette.

There is one thing different about today though; I have a 1:30 PM appointment with my hypnotherapist. It’s the second such attempt I'm making at quitting smoking this way. This has been an on going, thirty year struggle. You ever hear the old joke: quitting smoking is easy, I do it all the time…”? I’ve done it so many times in the past I’ve lost count.

So, what’s different about this time? I’m going to try a significantly different approach. I’m joining the Blogosphere! An on-line journal of my day to day struggle … And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find a community of people who’ll hold me accountable.

This is going to be about my journey and my struggle – all are welcome to comment and share – and if together, we all help each other or someone else with smoking, or with any other addiction, all the better.

This blog was a total afterthought. (In fact, as I write this I don’t even have a blog up and running yet. I am still reading about how to do that.)

While learning about blogging the two suggestions I keep running across are passion and money … both are simple for me to answer. I do have the passion to quit, I have the desire to stay smoke free, as for money, it’s absolutely not a factor. (Except for the money I expect to save from out of control taxes on the tobacco)! In fact, whether or not any one ever reads this is not even the point. This is just a public forum of my own therapeutic journal. (But it would be nice to know if this is helpful to anyone else … So if you know someone else struggling with the same issue, please direct them this way).

A common definition of Insanity has become: doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. This blog is my new approach to my own personal, perpetual struggle.

I’ve quit so many times in the past it’s absolutely ridiculous … like I previously stated, so many times I can no longer remember. My most successful attempt was not quite a year. I’ve stopped many times for approximately three months. I’ve ‘kicked’ the habit at least three times for Lent. The results are always the same. I think I can handle ‘just one’ and that quickly leads to another and then another and then a pack or two!

I AM a classic addict!