The Beer Problem

I am still a smoker despite my profound efforts to change this. While I am still indulging in this deadly habit, I have made alot of progress since I last posted in September. It has become clear to me that quitting cigarettes, at least for me personally, is going to have to be a gradual process. I simply don't possess the personal willpower to go cold turkey. It is unfortunate, but I have been forced to realize that this is simply the way it is, and I am going to have to take a gradual approach to quitting.

As I said, I have made alot of progress over the course of my effort. Primarily, I no longer purchase packs of cigarettes. Anyone who has ever smoked knows what a big step it is. When you are a smoker and you buy packs regularly, you are smoking all the time, because they are always only as far away as your pocket. And when you run out, you go to the nearest gas station or convenience store to re-up. This becomes habitual, and this is how daily cigarette routines come into play. The regular and constant avaliability of cigarettes is obviously what fuels the habit. So I stopped. For anyone not familar with cigarette prices these days, it is brutal on anyones wallet. The cheapest pack of cigarettes in Rhode Island today is a little over seven dollars. For anyone smoking a pack a day (given they elect to smoke the cheapest, lowest quality brand of cigarettes offered), they are spending $50 a week > $200 a month > $2,400 a year. $2,400 a year spent on something that significantly contributes to an earlier death. Wow. These statistics alone were enough to make me realize that I had to stop spending money on packs of cigarettes, both for my health and my finances.

This has done alot for me. By no longer purchasing packs of cigarettes, I have gone from smoking probably an average of 60 cigarettes a week, to somewhere between 5-20, depending on how much beer I drink in that given week.

And this brings me to what I like to call the Beer problem. I am twenty years old, almost of legal drinking age in the United States, and I am not ashamed to say that I love to drink beer. I do not have a drinking problem, I am im complete control of my drinking, but come weekends when all school work assignments are finished, by 8 o'clock you will find me with a cold Keystone Light in hand, ready to embark for an epic, wild night of recreational drinking within the college utopia that is the Eastward Look neighborhood of Narragansett Rhode Island. And that is a pattern of behaviour that is not going to change during my remaining two years of true youth here at URI.

But this is when I smoke, alot. Anyone who has regularly smoked cigarettes and drank beer in their life know that nicotine and cold beer go together like peanut butter and jelly. With a stomach full of beer there is nothing more I want than a tasty Marlboro, and it is an urge I rarely, if ever maintain the willpower to resist in my less than sober state of mind. As I said, I have made alot of progress in controlling my urges over the course of the past month. When I'm sober, I have noticed a marked decrease in my urges and need for a cigarette at any given time during the day. I am even able to go a full day, even two, without having one, wheras a month ago I rarely went 2 hours without having a cigarette. But when beer comes into the picture, all bets are off. It is truly a curse how much I like beer and cigarettes together. I find this to be the main problem between me and completely stopping quitting cigarettes, and I am at a juncture. A juncture that I call the Beer problem.