At least I got that resolution thing out of the way…

I have discovered my own personal Kryptonite, and it is stress.

Even I had started to wonder why this quitting smoking thing hasn’t seemed that difficult over the past few weeks. I haven’t been any (okay, much) more cranky than before; I’m not crying myself to sleep at night, and I’m truly enjoying the benefits of having quit (breathing, smelling, tasting, etc). And then – I decided it was time to go shopping.

In the last 48 hours, I have nearly done, or wanted to do, (or some combination of both) the following things:

• Run someone over with a shopping cart
• Run over someone who is pushing a shopping cart 
• Climb into a shopping cart to have a cry, and let someone else do the pushing
•  Scream at a perfectly nice person for no apparent reason
• Scream at a perfect stranger (with several good reasons)
• Scream at everyone within earshot
• Punch something 
• Punch something while screaming
• Hop a flight to Puerto Vallarta (yes, I was dumb enough to enter an airport, too)

The above points are merely an excerpt from a FAR more exhaustive list.

During my appearance Friday on Ben Meisner’s talk show on CFIS FM, Ben asked for my thoughts on the claim that quitting tobacco can be harder than kicking heroin. Since I’m lacking a certain perspective on that, I can’t really say… but I believe that when an addict encounters a trigger for their respective addiction – especially if it pops up unexpectedly, it can be the hardest thing in the world to ignore. And were it not for the support of some very special  people in my life, I don’t think I could have made it through the weekend. Even if in some cases they were the “someones” referred to above.

Based on the length of my current to-do list, and the stress it is undoubtedly going to induce, I think I’ve hit what will be the true test of my resolve to quit – the holidays.