A Challenge!?

My (ex) cycling partner who recently graduated, once explained "that people shouldn't leave college with more than one vice." While I heard this to be sound advice, I wonder how possible it is for many people to leave with only one. It seems like more and more, college is a time for heady learning coupled with caffeine; intense assignments broken up by smoke breaks; and the build up of stress released through alcohol. Maybe a lot of people don't follow that curriculum, but enough people in Denver imbibe, for Men's Health to have considered Denver to be the "drunkest big city" in the U.S for 2004. Beyond that I've talked to enough bleery eyed students clutching caffeinated beverages over smoke breaks, to assume that more than a few students cope with their syllabus this way.

As for me, I'm determined to end this vicious cycle of self-torture, and really what time could be better than when one is healing. Yes, yes, it seems insane to think that someone who would be crazy enough to bike across the country would also smoke cigarettes, but I did. In fact, the second that my ankles started bothering me, I started smoking again. So, in consideration for my health, when I got back to Denver I decided to do a cleanse for a week, in order to rid myself of the nasty toxins that made me crave cigarettes. This worked for all of about four days after the cleanse, when I drank a few beers at a smoky bar, pre-smoking ban, with some friends and started smoking again.

By this time, I'm truly a pro. I've quit. I've quit quitting. And I've always come back to being a quitting quitter who quit quitting (try saying that three times fast). This time, however, I'm going to make it stick, so I've resolved to quit alcohol for as long as it takes for me to quit cigarettes (and maybe longer). After all, in the immortal words of my (ex) cycling partner, college students should try to take only one vice with them post graduation and I prefer coffee. Even if too much coffee and too little sleep make Mary something something...

Here's the challenge, should you choose to accept it: for every cigarette you catch pursed between my lips from here on out, call me out and I will pay you a dollar (and no fair trying to sway the judge with your cigarettes, that's just cheating). Now let the games begin.