REPOSTED FROM VOX 8/10:
I quit smoking in 1992 – right after the elections, just like I promised. Of course it was the 6th or 7th time I’d promised but I actually did it. Put the money away in a jar just like they told me to at Smoke Enders and, since my kids had made me quit, gave each of them a year’s worth when they graduated from college. One on the road with the Grateful Dead; the other went to NYC, where we lived when he was little. They deserved it, living with all that smoke for all the years it too me to quit, throwing whole packs of smokes out our apartment window and generally being real pills until I finally kicked the habit.
Why am I talking about this 14 years later? Because today I really wanted to smoke a cigarette. Amazing. Of course I won’t and it will pass but it’s a shock to remember the desire after all this time. Probably all the terrorism nonsense. Peter Jennings said he started again after 9/11, I remember. But I’m just generally appalled at the power of this drug. It may not capture me again but it’s a powerhouse.