Why you should never quit smoking in January

The score: I have already cried twice. Once just when I was sitting at the table without anything happening and once when I was lying on the floor doing exercises for my hernia. Tears streaming down, while you tense your transverse abdominal muscles and make a cycling motion with your right leg is really not that sad. My boyfriend felt immediately addressed. Had he ruined the vacation? What was wrong? Why was I acting like this? And did I mind that he went outside for a smoke... No, of course not, dear. YES.

What I didn't tell anyone is that attempt one and attempt two sadly failed. Honestly, I was a bit ashamed. You announce with just a bit too much fanfare that you are quitting smoking and a month later you are back under the awning in the garden shivering in the cold and puffing on a cigarette. Pathetic, that was it.

On December 3rd, I let myself be locked in a room with about 200 smokers in Amsterdam. A conference center that is not cozy at all. A plastic chair that is uncomfortable, that kind of story. I joined an evening of Ikstopermee.nl, they say that after an evening of four hours you will never touch a cigarette again. Or at least eighty percent of the attendees. I went alone, which makes it even a bit worse. You can't tell anyone how sad it actually is that you need this, you can't laugh it off with anyone. I listened for four hours to a story about what your mind does to you when you light a cigarette. What stuck with me the most was that I am in a permanently less happy state than a non-smoker. I took mandatory smoke breaks and listened and listened, until I smoked my last two cigarettes at a quarter past ten in the evening. Back to back, I still only have one word for it: damn it. That second one was disgusting.

My last cigarette was a nasty cigarette. I have seriously wanted a cigarette at least seventy-five times and I have certainly not lit up seventy-five times. Tomorrow I have a party and I am a bit scared, but I won't do it. December is filled with parties, so how inconvenient to stop now, you might think. No, it is not. In January everyone asks you about it, making you think about smoking nonstop. Mindfuck, yes. On January 1st you have a hangover and thus a desire to smoke. And it has been scientifically proven that good resolutions you start in January fail. So you already know that.

I am sitting in a café around the corner from the editorial office writing this piece. It is about six degrees outside, it is damp, everything is wet, it is half past nine and still a bit dark and there is a man sitting outside at a table smoking a cigarette with a cup of coffee. I don't want that anymore, I never want that again. I don't want to be the only one having to go outside at a party because I think about a cigarette with a glass of wine. I don't want everyone to know that I smoke, because my smell is a mixture of Kilian and Marlboro Light. I just want to never smoke again. Two weeks ago I went to an evening of Ikstopermee.nl and I haven't touched a cigarette yet.