I want to clear something up, mostly for myself.
When I say my goal is to be smoke-free through April, I’m not secretly planning some cigarette-shaped celebration at the end of it. I’m not saying, “Hang on until April and then light up.” What I’m saying is simpler and more honest: the book fair in April is my next landmark, and I want to arrive there still not smoking.
That matters.
One of the most useful things I learned in the group at the Anaheim hospital was this idea of not collapsing everything into a single moment of failure. Quitting doesn’t begin on the day you put the cigarette down for good. For me, it began months before that, when I started trying, cutting back, thinking differently, and questioning the stories I’d been told about addiction.
So when I say “at least until April,” I’m setting the next few months as a clear, reachable goal. That framing helps me get through the holidays, which are no joke when you’re already dealing with stress, health fears, family dynamics, and habit ghosts that show up uninvited.
Here’s the part that can make people uncomfortable. Even if, hypothetically, I had a cigarette in April, which I don’t plan to, that would not mean I’ve failed and must now spiral back into smoking full-time. I could stop again. Immediately. Without shame. Without the idea that one cigarette equals destiny.
That way of thinking runs straight against traditional addiction theory, and I know it sounds strange because we’re trained not to think this way. We’re taught that it’s like eating a potato chip. You have one and suddenly the bag is empty and your life is ruined. But human behavior isn’t that simple. Spreading longer and longer stretches of time between cigarettes is still progress. Progress doesn’t evaporate because of one moment.
Right now, the holidays are hard. So I’m narrowing my focus to this season. Get through it. Then reassess. That’s not weakness. That’s strategy.
Which brings me to the word people love to throw around: enabling.
When my family saw where I was living, surrounded by cigarettes and drugs while dealing with cancer, they didn’t quote a theory at me. They acted. My mother and my brother moved me into her house. According to certain models, that’s enabling. According to reality, it was harm reduction.
What actually happened was this: I had a safer environment, more stability, and more money. I used that money to rebuild my art and writing business. As I rebuilt, I did the math and realized that quitting smoking wasn’t just healthier, it was financially smarter if I wanted to hit my goals. I smoked at my mom’s for a week or two, then quit. And it was dramatically easier there than in so-called tough-love halfway houses, which are often soaked in cigarettes and drugs.
My mother didn’t shame me. She supported me. She even bought me a tuxedo kitten. I sarcastically named her Whiskey the Kitty, a nod to my past with alcohol. But the joke turned into something real. Taking care of another living being, feeding her, cleaning up after her, earning her trust, and getting that affection back turned out to be powerful therapy. Responsibility changes the math.
Alcohol was easier to quit at my mom’s. Cannabis too. Funny how that works when you’re not trapped in an environment that constantly feeds the very behaviors you’re told you’re supposed to escape.
Tough love often claims to teach discipline, but what it really does is force people into conditions where relapse is practically baked into the walls. Harm reduction and humanism aren’t soft. They’re practical. And they’re a lot kinder.
Day 81. Still here. Still not smoking. Still aiming for April.
I got this.
by Dan and Bonkers
SUPPORT MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS TODAY!!!
