Stop Smoking

I went to visit the lady back in her home town on Day Six. She was there recuperating and I figured she could use some company. Plus it got me mad style points with the fam.

We pretty much hung out Saturday, watched the tourney, and ate some great Chinese. Since it was St. Patty’s Day, we had to go out and get plastered. I wasn’t resisting, of course. The local bars around there are great: really worn in and everyone knows everyone else. I was the exclusion to that rule, but it felt like I knew everyone.

Her parents and siblings can hold their own when it comes to drinking. Not wanting to feel left out, I did my best to go 1-for-1 with her dad. Of course, that made for a fun evening. The bars back there look the other way when it comes to smoking. I would guess that 90% of the people in these bars are smokers, so the smoke-to-air ratio was much worse than anything I’ve seen in a really long time. Probably because of this, I didn’t feel like smoking at all. I had the patch on, of course, and I think just knowing that fact helped a lot.

I had a great moment in the bar, too. I was shooting darts with the lady’s dad, uncle, and aunt. The game was Cricket. All of the numbers were filled and her dad and I were down by 13 points or so. The other team had two bulls and we only had one. I stepped up to the line and hit the first bull. Cool, I thought. I threw the second dart. Another bull. I just closed out our bulls on two consecutive throws. Impossible, right? I threw the third dart and it completed an equilateral triangle inside the green bullseye. I couldn’t believe it. It was one of those moments where you realize that you should just quit whatever activity you were just doing and hang it up for good. I can never top that. Never. I shouldn’t even try. But I am sure I will, since I like playing darts a lot.

Anyways, the next morning, I felt like I had smoked an entire pack. It was awful. My nose was stuffed, my throat was raw, and my lungs ached. No hangover, though, so that was nice. We hung out for a while and once we figured out that her rents weren’t going to be getting up anytime soon, we decided to go out to a local Italian restaurant for some lunch. The food was great and helped get rid of the nasty smoke taste lingering in my mouth. After that, we took a drive around the lake and she pointed out a bunch of places from her childhood. It was a great smoke-free time.

Such stress-free days like these really help me forget about smoking. I don’t think I really had any desire to smoke the entire weekend. Being around the lady helps a lot. Like I’ve said before, she’s never nagged me about smoking and always has a word of encouragement when I’m feeling weak. She’s awesome and it an incredible help in my journey to be smoke-free.