The Alcohol Challenge

I don't know about you but I always associated drinking alcohol with smoking, this is also the experience of all the smokers and ex-smokers that I know. I always smoked more when drinking, especially on a night out. The taste of that first beer would send me reaching for my cigarette packet and lighter and, if at home out into the garden I would go. If out with friends I would go out into the designated, banished smokers area.

Last night came my first real alcohol challenge since becoming a non-smoker, I had the opportunity to take an evening out and relax at home with a bottle of wine. This would normally involve several trips to the garden but last night I breezed through the challenge without even a slight pang for a cigarette. Don't get me wrong, smoking did occur to me several times, it still does several times a day but how I deal with those thoughts is what has made the difference. I no longer look a cigarettes as a complement to a glass of my favourite beer or wine, I see it as something that destroys the enjoyment, ruins the taste and interrupts conversations with friends.

I no longer see cigarettes as enjoyable, because lets face it they aren't, what is enjoyable is realising that they aren't and rejecting them.