Quitting Smoking

So... for the second year in a row, I made a New Year's Resolution to quit smoking for real. So far, I have not succeeded, but I've made some serious progress. According to my calculations, my daily cigarette consumption is down by about 80%, and on top of that I've switched to Ultra Lights.

I've just learned a really unsettling fact, by the way. Light and Ultra Light cigarettes are meaningless. They're just regular filtered cigarettes with tiny holes poked in the filter, so when you take a drag you're getting a little extra air mixed into the smoke. They "test" the levels of tar and nicotine using a machine that "inhales" the smoke from the end of the filter. What they don't tell you is that most humans who smoke cigarettes typically hold them using their fingers, which effectively cover most of these tiny holes, rendering them pretty much useless.

Ultra Light cigarettes taste basically like just sitting in a really smoky room and breathing the smoke-filled air. Unsatisfying and gross, and it still makes you smell horrible.

Anyway, wish me luck everyone. I can't afford to smoke anymore since moving to Massachusetts, and once I sat down and realized that I've been a smoker for over 10 years, I decided that it's kind of important to not die. My parents are offering to split the cost of laser acupuncture treatment with me, but even divided in half, it's still too expensive for me to afford at the moment.

I also just read this article and got extremely pissed off. Not that the cigarette industry was really doing anything that great for me before I found out, but seeing the article just made them seem so much more evil. I guess even if they send me free flashlights and travel dominoes sets and mix CDs, in the end they're still basing their business on profiting from my self-destruction.

More on this as I progress (or don't)...