My best friend is really having trouble with me deserting her in �our� habit.
The funny thing is, she was the one that announced, back in November, �I�ve decided that I�m going to quit smoking in January.�
I said, �Cool, I�ll quit with you,� and just like that, my decision was made. I talked to my husband and he agreed to quit with me also.
By the time New Year�s rolled around, I knew she wasn�t actually going to quit. She wasn�t talking about it, and when it did come up, she was all, �Yeah, I�m still thinking about it� instead of her previous statements of �I�m gonna do it.�
It didn�t matter to me, though, whether she quit or not. I mean, not that I don�t care whether she smokes or not because I do care, and I�d be very happy if she did eventually come around and actually follow through on her original commitment. What I mean is, the decision that *I* made to quit smoking had nothing to do with whether she quit or not � and her subsequent decision to not quit had no effect on *my* decision to go through with my own quit.
Ultimately, it�s a very personal decision and we�re all in it alone, experiencing our withdrawal symptoms in an individualized manner and from within our own perspective. Even though my husband and I quit at the same time, our quit-experiences are vastly different. My cravings have decreased over twelve days, his have actually increased. My mouth is dry and my sense of smell is returning and he�s feeling sweaty and jittery and just a little bit cranky.
For my friend, I think she�s feeling a combination of guilt and abandonment. This was her idea and I was the one who followed through and that makes her feel bad. Also, for the nine years that we�ve been friends, we�ve been each other�s smoking-buddy. When we were shunned and given dirty looks by judgmental non-smokers (most probably ex-smokers with that dreaded smug disease), we stuck together and coped by simply chain-smoking in joint retaliation (boy, did we show �em, huh!).
It has occurred to me that my decision to change my entire lifestyle might eventually come between me and my best friend at some point in the future. I have no intention of dumping her because she still smokes, or anyone else for that matter. I know from my previous quits that being a