Kicking the habit

OK, I guess I've made it far enough that I can publicly confess that after 31 years, I have quit smoking (hopefully for good).

I've tried so many times in the past that I vowed never to gloat about it in print until I had gone a significant amount of time without a smoke.

I think six weeks is significant enough, especially since the longest I had ever gone in the past was five days.

I started smoking when I was 13, enticed into it by friends who made it seem cool. By the time I was 16, I was smoking a pack a day and had pretty much kept it up until I smoked my last cigarette on April 9.

So what made the difference this time? I'm chalking it up to three factors:

1) I didn't try to do it alone this time. This time, I tried nicotine patches, and I'm amazed at how well they worked.

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