I’ve been a smoker since I was seventeen. I started the summer after I graduated from high school, and for most of the eight years since, I’ve been a solid half-a-pack to pack-a-day smoker, depending on how stressed I was. Nevertheless, I’ve always thought quitting was easy. After all, I’ve done it dozens of times! (roflmao)

However, early this summer, as my twenty-sixth birthday loomed, I remembered an article I read in Men’s Health while waiting to get my haircut a couple years before (Look, I know I don’t look like a Men’s Health reader. I’m not. I was only reading it because the place I was getting my haircut didn’t subscribe to Better Beers and Donuts). The article said that if one quits smoking before the age of 27, their lung function can pretty much return to normal. As our last live show loomed, I decided that this would mark the end of my lifetime as a smoker. Being a nervous piece of shit, I’d need that filthy habit to fall back on as a had a panic attack leading up to the show.  Knowing that, without some sort of support system, I’d likely fail, I decided to keep a journal. Here’s what I wrote:

July 3:
I wanted to get some stuff done on my day off. Instead, I spent the day in the shower, curled up in the fetal position, and weeping quietly.

July 4:
Stupid fireworks. They kinda look like cigarettes if you squint.

I stopped keeping the diary at this point, because I ate the rest of the paper in the notebook. However, I’m proud to say I’m smoke free for nearly three months now, and I only miss it whenever I see someone smoking or think about cigarettes. That’s progress, right?