More thoughts about quitting smoking today. It’s on my mind rather a lot these days as I’m sure you can imagine. (34 days now). Sorry, I didn’t intend for the Blog of Brian to be completely hijacked by the smoking issue. It’s like having my own personal General Sonthi.
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I never thought I’d be able to stop smoking in Korea. Well, I guess it’s technically true that I didn’t stop smoking in Korea. I officially stopped smoking in the United States, but what I mean is I stopped during the Korea phase of my life, which seemed rather unlikely until…well, until it happened.
See, during most of my career as a huffer and puffer, my main thoughts about quitting came from economic worries instead of concern for my health. (We could go deeper into that, but we’ll save it for another session, okay doc?) When I got to Korea, and saw how cheap cigarettes were I said to myself, “I guess I won’t be quitting smoking for the next couple of years.” In case you’re wondering, which I doubt, but in case you are, it’s even worse in Russia. There, the “expensive” imported smokes are about 65 cents a pack, and the domestic brands are something like 30 cents.
The thing is, price doesn’t actually matter. I didn’t smoke more in places where they were cheaper, and I didn’t smoke less in places where they were expensive. I smoked how much I smoked because that was what I needed to service my addiction. After I’d been here a while, it didn’t matter anymore what the cost was. They just cost what they cost.
So anyway now that I’ve stopped, at current Korean pricing I figure I’ve already saved about 85 dollars. Amazing how quickly it adds up. I should reward myself. I deserve it, don’t you think? Maybe when I’ve “saved” a hundred dollars I’ll get myself a bauble.
I also have to come clean about another thing I haven’t told anyone yet: I still have 19 packs of cigarettes in my apartment. See, before I left on my vacation I bought two cartons at the duty-free shop in the airport. That just goes to show I had no intention of quitting before I actually did. For the first week I was at home I worked on the first pack out of the two cartons, but then I quit before it was even finished. Even then, I continued to carry that unfinished pack around with me until just before I left to return to Korea. It was like a security blanket you know, in case I really, really needed it. The same could be said I suppose–if you wanted to get deeply Freudian–about the 19 packs still in my apartment. As long as they are just sitting there on the shelf, still in the plastic duty-free shopping bag, they don’t bother me, but if they were gone I think I would freak out a little.
So just get rid of them you might say. If you haven’t been a smoker or an addict of some kind I can see how it must seem that simple, but it isn’t. Let me illustrate with a joke on a slightly different topic:
Q: What do you call it when someone drinks half a glass of wine, then walks away and leaves the rest on the table?
A: Alcohol abuse.
At first my plan was to take the cartons to my school and leave them in the maintenance shed where the (male) teachers go to smoke between classes. It seemed like that would be kind of smug though, like “I guess I don’t need these anymore, but I thought you poor bastards might like them. Enjoy.” Anyway, I kept forgetting to bring them in (more Freudian stuff there), so now it would just be weird.
Well, regardless of what I do, I guess it’s time to get rid of them one way or another. Anyway except smoking them, right?
Labels: cigarettes, quitting smoking
