Freedom!

I finished my last final yesterday. I am officially done with my first year of law school. Don’t ask me how I did, because I will have no idea until at least mid-July. The best I can hope for is an idea of my final grade in Legal Writing and a hint of how I did in Law in the Regulatory State. Anyhow, no more classes, no more books, no more Clinton’s dirty looks. That makes me a happy man.

So I’ve decided to try this stop smoking program my mom sent me now that I’m done with finals. I don’t know how wise that is since I’m going to be trying to write on to ASU Law Journal this weekend, but hey–it’s worth a shot. That would be why I’m up at 3:30 in the morning; any regular smoker who has tried to quit knows exactly what I’m talking about here. The program has a lot of hogwash about fresh vegetables, cinnamon mouthwash (which is nearly imppossible to find) and grapefruit juice. It’s supposed to help reduce cravings, but it doesn’t work at all. The most effective part of the program so far is writing and signing a “declaration of independence” from smoking where you promise your family and friends that you are strong enough to quit smoking. I haven’t broken my word in over 7 years, and I don’t particularly want to break that record. Normally, I wouldn’t make a promise I couldn’t keep, but now that I have I don’t want to break it.

Another helpful part is the signs. They tell you to put signs up everywhere to remind you that you’ve quit (like the mad cravings every 4 minutes don’t remind you ). Brie and Connor made a bunch of creative signs for me and hung them everywhere; there is even on on my laptop right now. So now if I smoke, all that hard work will have been in vain. The guilt helps (maybe the Catholics are on to something).

We’ll see tomorrow how the “no coffee, tea or alcohol” requirement will go. I get the logic behind it, but I’m not looking forward to the morning with no coffee, especially since I’ve been wide awake since 2:30. I think I may have to cheat and have some “Detox Tea” to help get the nicotine out of my system a little faster. I don’t drink it often enough for there to be a conditioned response to crave a cigarette, like there woul be with my coffee.

Anyhow, wish me luck!