Kim in all her smoke-wrinkled glory, 2024

I quit smoking on New Year’s Day 2024.

Three days later, I buy a pack of cigarettes.

The addict who’s lived inside me since I was 17 knew I would. She’s had an hour in the car to justify lighting up.

“You just dropped your husband off at the hospital. They’re gonna cut open his neck, for God’s sake! He might have cancer! This is really stressful. You deserve to smoke. And you’re going to be alone so no one will know. Perfect!”

I stop at a convenience store and buy the damn cigarettes. Once home, I pull on my ratty fleece smoking jacket and head out the back door. I glance down the driveway to make sure no one’s dropping by, and casually walk to the back of the garage, my inner addict vibrating in anticipation.

In the distance, I hear a tiny voice. I’m sure it’s saying, “Wait! Wait! Don’t do it!” But I can’t tell, because my addict is roaring in my ears.

I open the pack of cigarettes, pull out the protective paper, and voila! There they are! Twenty perfect cylinders of stress relief. Place cig between lips, strike match, cup hands, flame to tip, suck to get the paper and tobacco burning. Here I am again, back with the trash bins, propane tank, and random crap we stash behind the garage so no one sees it.

I wake the next morning with ashtray mouth, but I have 15 cigarettes left. At $13 a pack, I’m smoking them. My addict jumps in, “It’s OK, you’ll quit tonight. No one will ever know.”

Except now I’ve broken the New Year’s Day barrier, the hard stop date. I was so sure I would make it this time. But I was sure on my birthday in November, too. Before that, it was my mother and sister’s memorial. I’d quit for weeks, but then my addict would talk me into a little smoking holiday. “Oh, come on, just for the weekend,” or, “Just while you’re out of town by yourself.”

This off-and-on-again smoking had been going on since 2017, when my addict, asleep for 11 years, woke up. That year, my sister, who still smoked, moved to town, and our mother began the slow slide into Alzheimer’s hell. I thought I could have a cigarette now and then and not really start up again. Yeah, right. You know what’s even worse? My sister got cancer, and I kept smoking.

A friend asked me, “You have the knowledge and motivation to quit. What’s the missing piece?”

God, how I wish I knew. I’m definitely motivated, and I know all the grisly, disabling, and deadly things smoking will do to me.

I know, too, why I smoke. Put simply, nicotine releases endorphins that relieve stress and give me that numbing effect. It also releases dopamine, which gives pleasure and a sense of reward, making me want to do it again. Without any conscious effort from me, my brain created a neural pathway from trigger (strong or painful feelings, smell of smoke, being in a bar, etc.) to behaviour (smoke) to reward (relief and pleasure). I have travelled this particular neural pathway so many times that there is a nonstop high-speed highway in my........

© HuffPost