I used to remember the exact day that I quit smoking, it was a Thursday, that much I still remember. It was the one year anniversary when my cousin got married, that too, I remember. It was in the afternoon, sometime after work. I was 29.
I didn’t take note of the day I quit drinking. It wasn’t such an momentous event as quitting smoking, I didn’t mark the day. Instead I just didn’t have another drink. Technically I had a drink of wine at a mass, that was not a drink drink though. It was communion of transubstantiation, which is more than just excuse making, it is intention.
I do know that it was approximately two years ago, some time around now. We had tried to quit before, said we needed to quit every morning we woke with a devastating hangover or with no memory of the utter shame we had brought upon ourselves the night before. This time though, I knew. I knew that I was done and that it was the only way.
I also knew that for me, like smoking, it was all or nothing. I have not had a drink in recreation nor smoked any tobacco, since I quit. (I have never consumed tobacco in any other form, so that again, is a sort of technicality.)