Just getting to this thread, Good Luck LD!! I quit 1.5 years ago, for the third and hopefully last time, nicotine addiction is no joke! The tobacco companies are partially correct when they say that the decision to smoke is a matter of free will, what they don't mention is that the decision is usually made by impressionable, insecure adolescents, (as it was w/ me). I smoked Marlboros for most of 30 years, (13-43), with a couple of short breaks of a year or two.
How addictive is nicotine? In the addiction business, they say that (the addiction) is cunning, baffling and powerful. It wants you dead or in diapers, and it will tell you what ever it needs to get you there. It's really no different from alcohol for an alcoholic or heroin for a junky, only difference is that nicotine has a better shot at getting you to the funeral home. The most effective phrase that the addiction disease has in its repertoire is "what's the use/fug it", or its many variations.
How cunning and powerful is it? The most insane decision that you will ever make regarding smoking will be made w/ no active nicotine in your system. That will be the decision to have *just one* after weeks/months/years after quitting.
That's powerful.
I wish you success, you are the perfect age where you just might have dodged a really ugly bullet if you quit now. Lucky smokers drop dead on the golf course, unlucky ones wind up in diapers needing 24 care like my uncle, who was my favorite person in the world. He had a massive stroke, only 67, wound up basically committing suicide after that rather than burden his wife and kids. Not trying to scare ya, (that's fruitless I know), just a little reality check.
The best prescription that I know of is a good support group, and you have us, so go for it!!
