Tomorrow will make week three since the day Tim and I quit smoking. For me it will make one full week since I’ve had a smoke.

For anyone that’s ever quit smoking you’ll know that there is a distinction between the two. It’s been three weeks since I was smoking any time I want, and one week since seeing a friend down the street where we bummed a single smoke off her.

I’ve been a smoker for five years now, and for five years I’ve been trying to quit. Growing up I managed to stay “clean” and never ever even tried a smoke. But 6 months after I met Tim, something happened. Jury Duty.

Have you ever been called to Judy duty and not been called to court? Well I have. It was the longest, loneliest day of my life. Twelve hours we were kept. We couldn’t leave the room we were in, we had no TV and no music. I sat for a large part of the day doing a puzzle by myself. But there was a room just off the one we were unable to leave, that was outside and set aside just for smokers.

What I noticed that day was that all of the non smoker’s were sitting inside, all of them alone. There was not one conversation going on. But outside, with the smoker’s, everyone was smiling and chatting and no one was sitting alone.

I felt completely isolated. So I went out side and I made some friends. By asking someone for a smoke.

On my way home I bought my own pack. I had now been a smoker for 6 hours. When I got home I clearly remember sitting up against my car in the back yard talking to Tim and him saying that he didn’t want me to become a smoker. In all of my wisdom, I said, “I wont”

Now five years later, we’re using a drug called CHAMPIX to help us quit. We simply do not crave smoking like we would have in all of our previous (and failed) attempts. We have a three months supply and you can only do it once a year. But it’s working. If we play our cards right we’ll break ALL of our smoking habits. That includes smoking in the back yard when friends visit.

The problem with this I have found is that ALL of our friends are smokers. And while the CHAMPIX helps us to not crave, it only really works (for me, anyway) if the smokes are not in the house. But the second I know there is a smoke and that I could have one, I want it.

So we’ve asked all of our friends not to bring smokes in with them. We’ve asked them not to smoke while they’re at our house.

It would seem like a reasonable request to me. It’s not like they visit for ten hours at a time. They come for a coffee, they go.

But since I’ve asked those friends not to smoke at our house, they haven’t visited for nearly two weeks. It seems it’s too much to ask of them, to not smoke for 45 minutes.

So now I find myself in exactly the same situation as when I first started. I feel isolated because NONE of our friends are non smokers. I wonder now, if I’ll have to go out and find new friends, and if that will increase our chances in the long run of remaining non-smoker’s ourselves.