“It’s easy to quit smoking. I’ve done it hundreds of times.” - Mark Twain

Addictions are such complex things that the subject has filled thousands of books. For me to post about them means that I have to really narrow down the discussion, because I was a substance abuse counselor for 17 years and know too damn much on the subject.

I’ve also had, and still have, lots of hard-to-kick bad habits.

I started at some point in counseling sessions to call addictions ‘bad habits’. Not to trivialize them, but to normalize them and to point out that almost everyone has addictions of varying severity. And, like other, lesser bad habits, we come to engage in them with almost no conscious thought. They permeate our being and our life. As good addicts we’ll get our brain-fix well before we actually notice that we’re withdrawing.

I quit smoking again this New Year’s Day. Since then, I’ve been eating most everything that doesn’t get out of the way, but that’s starting to subside a bit already.

I think this is going to be a good quit. I’m not craving tobacco, and I don’t feel deprived by its absence in my life. I’ve had bad quits, ones which don’t last very long, and I missed the drug every minute of them, until finally surrendering.

Here ’s the narrow thing that I want to discuss tonight:

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So, in response to Rory’s link to the cat herders I offer this brilliant piece of irrelevant advertising. And I don’t even drink beer.

I’m about to go out for a walk to contemplate the burgeoning brilliance of my post for today.

(Yeah. I’m trying to figure out what the hell to write about….)

In the meantime, it’s occurred to me that there might still be a very few people in the world who haven’t yet seen my favorite net vid:

Herding Cats

See y’all in a little while.

Note to myself: I’ve actually bought the software for capturing a pic of a vid so that my EOB posts will all be graphically rich. Now all I have to do is download, install, and learn how to use said software. Real Soon Now.

Although I think they made the head a touch too small. Still and all.

When Morgan blogged about Jessca Hagy’s site Indexed, I found the card below painfully apropos.