I’m with you Casey! I’m setting my date for the 18th, cause you just HAVE to smoke on St. Paddy’s day, I think its an olde Irish law. Like most of the posters here, I have the most trouble when I’m drinking with other smokers. Not only is the craving there, but while I’m drunk I can’t seem to remember why I even wanted to quit in the first place. I wish us both luck and mental fortitude in our endevour.
I’ll be breaking that “law” this year. 
I had a couple beers last night, but instead of hanging out downstairs, where I would have lit up and enjoyed a beer before pouring another one, I just came right upstairs. That draft lasted quite a bit longer than I had expected, especially for being the first one. I wound up only having two before getting tired around 10:30 or so and heading to bed.
I’m thinking soon I’ll have the stamina to get some sit ups in to tone down the toolshed, which will be a bonus.
Congradulations, I quit for new years (actually a little before, I have a thread around here somewhere about it), and have in the last month had a bit of a relapse. The combination of being surrounded by smokers at work, and going through a particularly stressful patch of my life that did me in. I am back up to a pack a week.
But I am with you, and am ready to try to quit again. I hate how I feel now that I am smoking again, and its back to the point where I hate it more than I like smoking. My St. Paddy’s day plans involve non smokers, so my last pack of smokes goes in the trash tonight.
F*** yeah, I’m quitting, too. Actually, I did quit, damn it, about two years ago. Didn’t smoke for a year and a half, and didn’t even miss it… then I started again six months ago. Yeah, that “just one puff”. I must be a complete asshat. The most classic asshat ever. One puff, my derriere. Suddenly my brain once again got to revel in that wonderful poison that it had been doing without for all that time… and started acting like a drunken sailor in a brothel after a year and a half at sea.
But I figure that if I know that I’m an asshat and still keep acting like an asshat, I must be the asshat of asshats. Asshat squared. So I’m quitting again. As of right now. Damn it, I don’t even need to smoke, really. For the past six months, I’ve only been smoking at home, by the window. Not a puff when I’m out and about, and when I’m elsewhere doing stuff, I forget that I smoke and don’t think about it. So it’s not like I f-ing have to do it. The urge only kicks in again when I’m about two minutes from my front door.
Damn it, everything stinks around here now.
And sorry about the rant.
I quit last Tuesday. (Although I did cheat over the weekend but I am not going to go back to it and I still consider myself “quit”).
I read the book The Easy Way to Stop Smoking and while it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, it really helped put things in perspective for me. Of course, it probably helped that I was really ready to quit. One little gem in the book that really stuck with me went something like “Don’t fool yourself into thinking you are smoking because you want to or because you enjoy it. You are smoking to relieve the awful stress of the nicotine craving. This is akin to purposely wearing too tight shoes to enjoy the feeling of removing them”.
Hal Briston recommended that book as well. He swears by it. I’m still going to pick it up and read it, I just quit before I got to the bookstore. Maybe it will reinforce some stuff and help through a weak moment.
Peak Banana, you’re not an asshat, you’re in the clutches of a nicotine addiction. All of us here know what a bitch it is to quit and I know from my own experience what it’s like to sit there sucking on a Parliament asking myself why I am doing this to my body, knowing it’s killing me and yet, lighting up another one as soon as the first one is snuffed out.
Try not to be so down on yourself. Don’t think of yourself as an asshat for what you’re doing to your body, think of the favor you will be doing your body when you quit.
Two weeks ago I went to the doctor, still a smoker, I was, and my BP was 138/88. It’s been hovering around there and up to 140/90 for the past 9 months. After quitting for only 5 days my BP was down to 132/82.
It was a real boost to help me stay focused on being smoke-free. So yeah, I gave myself a little pat on the back. 
Peak Banana, I keep seeing Pork Banana as your username, which would be far funnier.
Beginning the dreaded Day 3.
I noticed I actually bounded up the steps today at work and wasn’t winded. The not winded part didn’t really suprise me, the “happy to be here at work” thing did, though. Am I going to start tolerating and possibly enjoy the company of the fools I work with? Especially now that I’m getting more nerve endings for them to work on?
I’ve been in a pretty good mood since Tuesday, actually. Maybe knowing I’m doing the right thing helps. I just hope I don’t turn into one of those preachy non-smoker types, that cough in an exaggerated manner when someone near me is smoking.