Kicking the habit, rather than yourself
It's been 1000 days since Dave Winer stopped smoking.
I think he's dead-on about smoking as a not-so-little expression of self-loathing and self-destruction--I know that it's one of the ways I used it. Feeling my lungs crinkle like paper gave me a deep, perverse sort of satisfaction on certain nights.
But, I do miss (and have never replaced) the social aspects, like taking a thinking break and gravitating to some common area where a bunch of other surly colleagues regularly appeared for chat and bitching. I spend too much time habitually desk-chained these days. Still surly, though.
Funny thing is, I've already stopped counting the days. I had to use my own blog search to find a mention of my kicking the habit to recall when it was that I gave it up.
I quit cold turkey, went insane for about 12 weeks with some serious panic attack episodes, but then it stopped being a component of who I am. It never fit all that well to begin with, really.
But, having quit cold turkey is something I often use to remember that changing myself, if not easy, is always possible.
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