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I wish I�d stop falling for guys I can never have. Why do I do this to myself? The guy I�m liking now is so out of reach I get a strain just thinking about it. No, this isn�t some depressed "I just can�t have him" thing, it�s real. I can�t have him. He�s married. He�s much older than I. He�s just a friend, and maybe not even that much � a friendly acquaintance. The few times I have like someone I could actually date have turned out to be disastrous too. One, who I did date for a couple of weeks, turned out to be an aspiring criminal and an ass. Another, who I didn�t date or even openly show my interest, eloped with an then ex girlfriend. Another guy I liked turned out to be completely anti-social to a frightening degree. I have no luck. Not that I�m hurting for a boyfriend or anything, it�s just that I wish I could have crushes on guys I could possibly date without them being married or psycho. Is that asking too much?

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So I�m quitting smoking. Yes. Me. I�m scared, are you? I�ve set the date and started to make changes in my routine. According to people who have quit before me said this is helpful. I took a quit smoking test to see what kind of smoker I am, and they recommended I seek medical help. That scared me too. However, I had already decided that I�m weak-will-powered, so I wanted to go that way. I�m a strong believer in mind over matter, but that can work in reverse. It�s firmly entrenched in my mind that I cannot quit alone and that nicotine replacements won�t work for me. So, I�m going to start Zyban on Saturday. Yup, anti depressants. That�s the way to go. If I�m not depressed now, I will be when I quit, so there. I�ve got a buddy. She quite a year ago this February, and she went the Zyban way, so she�s helping me through. She�s been very helpful so far, and I haven�t even quit yet. I chose her mostly because she�s been here before. People who have never been addicted to anything don�t understand, and couldn�t possible understand, what it�s like. Those who have/are understand. It�s hard to put into words what it�s like, so the communication isn�t there. I�m afraid my non-addicted friends will try to say, "This was all for just a cigarette?" because the answer is no. It was more than the cigarette. It was more than social. It is a combination of phycological, physical and emotional dependency. In my quit smoking literature, it says: "Smoking provides a 'high' that makes the person feel a sense of calm and happiness. This high soon becomes the normal state of mind for the smoker, so that when they quit, life can seem less than it was and depressing."

This sounds about right to me. I know in time I�ll get over it, but this is going on to a decade of addiction. I�ve been smoking about nine years. Nine years of phycological, physical and emotional dependency. I don�t want that belittled by my non-addicted friends. Not just because they don�t understand, also because I know they don�t understand and I don�t want to get angry with them for never having been here. I say, 'good for you' when I see someone who�d never had an addiction. But I�m afraid I�ll get angry. Please, don�t make light of my addiction. Quitting is hard enough with my own self-belittlement.

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