A nice day for a smoke

After Sunday market Tessa and I occasionally go down to St Heliers beach for a "picnic" late lunch from the local bakery.

We've done it plenty of times, including the nicer Sundays over the winter but this was the first time we'd done it since I quit smoking.

We sat on the bench seats looking out over the beach to the sea, eating our lunch, watching the people go by along the promenade. I finished my lunch, leaned back in my seat looking out to sea. As I did this the thought "Nice day for a smoke" came unbidden into my head.

I said "Yeah, it would have been" quietly to myself and put it out of my mind but it's interesting how often the first time I do something I haven't done since quitting, or go somewhere I haven't been since then causes a smoking trigger to be released.


When the trigger comes up I often realise that yes, this was a place / time I regularly smoked. I almost certainly would have lit up after having lunch in that very seat in the past.

Alternately, as I'm now going to places I only occasionally visited before quitting, I'm wondering if I really do associate those places with smoking or if the addiction is asking "maybe here??" If it is the latter, will visiting places I've never been before act as triggers in the future. Will thinking I should have a cigarette become my standard reaction to new places? If so, I wonder how long will that last?

Rust never sleeps. Nor, it seems, does addiction.