Cbird. Thanks.
Bruce, I kind of expected someone to ask that question and, believe me, this is for me. I love my wife, I love my kids, and friends. But make no mistake they are (albeit important) bystanders here.
I will not be owned or defined by this addiction. Period.
To answer your question, did that dip on the way to the Vet help anything? Nope, not a damn thing.
You really Love it? Do you make sweet love to your tin? Do you buy your tin flowers and candy on Valentine's day? How can you love something that does not love you back? In fact while you "love it", its literally enslaving you and trying to kill you. When you stopped for 3 years, sounds like you still really loved/missed it? Even now, your intentions to quit sound pure but you still speak foundly about it .
My advice is to stop with the fallacy that you LOVE tobacco and that it makes you "invincible". Give me a fucking break on that one.
At some point, to really quit, not STOP for 3 years you need to wake the fuck up and stop giving the shit so much credit and build up some HATE for it.
I'm pretty sure if you thought logically and sat down and made a list of "reasons to love" and "reasons to hate"...the hate list would be longer.
I know this is easier said than done, because I struggled with it as well.
But once I took a big step back and really looked at what tobacco did for me, or more like too me...I truly did start to hate it.
That hate, if real, can carry you through tough times of your quit. Those weak moments where you think a lip full of cancer cud will ease any stress, pain, boredom, or make you cool as frosty.
It can't. Its all one big lie. Nobody loves a liar. You don't need that shit...you never did.