I regret quitting smoking.

8 days ago I quit smoking. I was leaving a Chinese buffet with my boyfriend, I was lighting a cigarette when I noticed a vape store and decided to do some exploring. I tried one vape and it tasted better than cigarettes, it tasted like candy, so I switched to vaping instead of smoking.

Yes, I know, vaping is not good for your health either. Thank you for your support 👍 quitting smoking wasn’t hard enough as it was, needed some “supportive” words like that 🙄

Now, if you’re still here, I’m assuming you actually want and to hear me out. I tried going back to cigarettes twice, and I couldn’t do it. The taste is just too bitter for me now. I physically can’t smoke cigarettes, no matter how hard I try. I know it sounds like a load of it, or good news, but unfortunately its not.

I’ve been smoking since the end of 2019/beginning of 2020, and it was part of my daily routine. I’d wake up and smoke a cigarette, after lunch, before going to bed. I started with one cigarette at day, and was smoking 5 over the course of 2 years. I know I wasn’t a heavy smoker, but smoking was part of my what I saw in the mirror (and loved it). Now it’s gone.

You see the broken cigarette? 4 drags and I tossed it. I can’t even do that anymore…

Who the heck gets this upset about easily beating a bad habit in less than 8 days? I bet if quitting was this easy for everyone, no one would smoke anymore! Or would they?

What is smoking to you, who has been doing it throughout your daily life? What does it actually mean to you? How did you started? Why did you started? Why don’t you quit? Is it really that hard, or do you simply don’t want to quit?

To me, smoking cigarettes was like a friend. Smoking was the friend I needed during some of the hardest times of my life. It was there in the middle of the night, it protected me from monsters (you’re not gonna get this one), I’ve loved the smell of cigarettes since I was s child, I liked the taste when I first tried it, and I loved the feeling inside my lungs raising my body temperature. I loved smoking so much, I’d walk out my house in -7F to smoke with no regrets. I regret nothing, but quitting now, because I keep begging for just one more day. I just wish I had one more day of blissful smoking.

Smoking now is repugnant to my taste buds, it doesn’t bring me joy anymore. It just makes me want to grab my fruity vape.

Look, rationally, I am grateful it wasn’t as hard for me to quit then it is for most, and I am grateful for all the support, and how much money I’ve saved, but it is a more bitter than sweet goodbye to a friend I loved, and will never see again. I smoked with my full heart and soul, it gave me happiness, it grounded me when I was floating away into the void. Smoking was my safe place, now the list of things they give me joy is a little bit shorter.