This is my new day one.
I've failed April, my friends and myself.
I have to answer the three questions and quit again.
I've broken my promise.
That could be how this post would go if I didn't use the tools this site has given me for my quit last night. I honestly dont know if I'd have caved last night without Bryce's call. I do know I'd have started a count down to the above post. I do know that I'd be lying every time I posted roll to my brothers if I hadn't reached out and if I hadn't had a brother that would reach back and pull me from the cliffs edge.
Yesterday was an amazing day, I woke up at 4am with so much drive and willpower I felt fucking amazing. I put in 3 hours cleaning the house before I even went to work. At work I kicked ass I put away the load I set up a couple good sized accounts and I handled my shit well. When I got home I still had that drive and fire to get shit done so I started going through boxes in the attic, I've been putting this off for years and it felt fucking amazing working on them finally. Plus going through boxes of my grandfathers stuff brought up some awesome memories of the time I'd spent with him, hunting trips when I found his weird collection of spent shells, Football and baseball games when I found his box of plaques and trophies for all the records he held and all the important games he'd won, That picture of him with my varsity cheerleaders from my senior year game against his old high school. Great fucking memories. A cuban cigar! Oh I remembered how he loved the cuban's, smoking cigars, I could take it out and it was still pristine! It smelt just like I remember him in my youth. Man it was still fresh, this little tube did wonders at holding up its condition. What a great tribute when should I smoke this? Oh my god, me and dad could smoke this on Fathers day at the cemetery! I'll surprise him with it when we get there and we can stand in the family crypt and fill it with the smells of my grandfather and get one more strong bonding memory with him. A last gift, if you will, from beyond the grave.
The grave...
God those last years were rough on him, he had more good days than bad for the first few years. That scare when I was 10 and he almost died in the grand ol opry...But then he hung on to see me through high school. And he had a lot of good days, maybe not as many as the bad, but when he wasn't in the hospital he was pretty good still...not himself anymore, never really himself besides a handful of glimpses...but he wasn't begging for death...Until he was. Those last few years. My grandmother clinging him to life, afraid of being alone. All the scares, how many times did I stand over him in the hospital thinking that this was it? Dozens? Watching him somehow pull through again and again. Get worse and worse with each trip to the hospital. He died years before his body gave up. Ghost of the man he was in my youth and teens. Hearing him scream at the poor nurses and caregivers to "Fucking kill me already!" and then when it stopped being screaming and shouting. when I heard it switch from that fire and anger and that strength that stubborn man always had to begging it was crushing. No more yelling just a quiet whimper to "please...please kill me?" And then he passed...finally...he wasn't hurting anymore.
And there I am standing with this awesome tribute to him, his murderer in my hand. Already planning the smoke I'm going to have with it with my father, his youngest son. How I'm just going to give in and fail my quit, to give him "tribute" by letting myself become another victim to the devil that killed him, not killed him, killing him would be merciful compared to what nicotine did to him, he was fucking tortured. 15 years of fucking torture before his body finally broke and let him die.
I wish I could say I had those thoughts on my own, I wish I could say that I was strong enough to rip that fucking thing apart by myself...but those thoughts didn't come. I spent minutes romanticizing and imagining smoking the cigar, I didn't even think of the site, I didn't think of my quit I didn't think of my wife, my future kids, my brothers on here! I grabbed my phone excitedly about to text mom and tell her what I'd found that I had the best surprise for dad ever for fathers day!
My eyes fell on the group chat I've got going with mike, bryce and athan. It wasn't a strong pull. But I felt a slight tug at my conscience I'd made a promise to these guys. I'd told them I wouldn't. Well its not like I'm smoking it right now. I stare at the group chat and the tug gets slightly stronger. Its almost like I'm asking myself what the fuck am I doing? But in a quiet voice. Deffinitely 95% still happy go lucky holy shit I'm gonna smoke this cigar this will be awesome. But just a little 5%...just enough to send out an SOS...I honestly didn't mean to tell them, it wasn't a "Oh god what am I DOING!?" scream for help. Most of me was completely back to addict mindstate. But...that 5% was growing, not that I was going to destroy the cigar mind you. But I'm pretty sure I could have tricked myself into thinking that I could just give the cigar to my dad on my own, I mean he should at least get it.
Then that fathers day would have come and my dad would have handed me the cigar and I'd have toked on it regardless of what I had promised myself back in March. Because how could I refuse that when it was staring me in the face, I could barely refuse it when its still months out.
Again, thoughts I wish I'd have had the strength to have on my own. But I did have the strength to shoot out one quiet lonely plea for help. to a group of guys I was 90% sure were asleep. I didn't call...I just texted...I might have called if dad had offered me the cigar...I might have had the strength to refuse...but...We all know I wouldn't have. I'm weak...I am an addict. I didn't want to not smoke the cigar, I wanted to trick that 5% into shutting up, trick myself into thinking I had everything under control.
This wasn't a "HELP I'M GOING TO CAVE!" text...all I said was "I just found a cuban cigar in my grandfathers possessions in pristine condition..." For those of you that know me, you know cigars have and always will be my weakness, I don't want to not smoke cigars. I never viewed them on the same playing field as dip and cigarettes until coming to this site, and if we are being completely honest there is still a large portion of my brain that doesn't. So this, not just cigar...this Cuban... My weakest of weakest points...A portion of my addiction I already romanticize its importance to me. Add on to that one last strong memory of my grandfather. Probably the last I would ever have of such clarity. Add on top of that the bonding moment with my father to smoke his fathers last cigar ever...That 5% resistance had become 10% just long enough to shoot out that text is now gone with that thought.
Bryce is calling....
Ignore it...I can almost feel a fog coming over me. I can feel that resistance start to re-surge after seeing that someone cares about my quit enough to wake themselves up and call me in the middle of their night to make sure I'm quit, one of the few people on the planet that knows me well enough and knows the struggle well enough to know my mindset is gone there's no strength left in my quit its been bulldozed. Luckily that quiet call for help is answered, and as I bend my knees to leap from the cliff an arm shoots out to drag me away from failure.
Ignore the call you know what it will be...
Do I jump and rip myself from the help that is being offered or do I accept the support?
If I ignore this call I seal it...I'm gonna cave...I'm gonna cave?
I answer.
My brothers support is the only thing that kept me from diving off that cliff back into the waiting loving arms of my grandfathers murderer. Letting myself take one step closer to my own future grandsons having to watch that fucking Nicotine Bitch torture me until my body can't handle it anymore and I die slowly in front of them. Ruining their memory of me.
Skol talked me back from that cliff. Five minutes of mostly fog. The internal struggle with him in my corner. Until I fought through it. We fought through it. Finally it was 95% resistance and 5% desire to smoke. We got off the phone and before I could lose that will power I shredded it and flushed it down the toilet.
Once it was flushed the realization hit. Hard...How close I came to caving...had I? It felt like I had, I'd decided to. isn't that the same thing? It really showed me that I was weak. I couldn't do it on my own. I opened the tube, I smelt it and felt it and envisioned smoking it. I didn't immediately ask for help, I didn't even want help. I didn't even know I needed help for the first minutes.
If I can refuse this cigar...I can refuse any cigar, there will never be a more tempting cigar I can envision. Unless my father with his dying moments hand rolls a cigar out of tobacco he grew and asked me to smoke it in his memory...I can not picture any stronger temptation.
I need to remember that I nearly put an expiration date on my quit. I would have if that cigar wasn't in the sewer right now. I would have if a brother hadn't given me a call without hesitation.
