michelle, you CAN do it. The more addicted you feel, the better your chances of quitting forever. I've seen it happen many times with people who smoked up to 3 packs a day and never were without a lit cigarette hanging from their mouths.
I like cigarettes and do not like that people can't smoke in bars, that there aren't special places where smokers can hang out and smoke & yak. But I hate when smokers do it in their cars or homes with their kids exposed, or toss butts out the car window or smash them on the sidewalk. And when i imagine some teenager's little pink lungs turning black from that cigarette she's smoking to look cool, i just wanna die.
still, you really should quit, for more reasons than cancer and emphysema. my smoking habit did two terrible things to me. first, it gave me horrible wrinkles around the lips and generally aged the skin on my face. Second, it ruined my sinuses and i had to have a horrible, painful surgery to rebuild my septums (septa?). Aside from the stink on my clothes and in my hair, i tolerated them because i never smoked in the house and never smoked in my car, nor would i allow anyone else to. nevertheless, i caused permanent damage and it is one of the few things i wish i'd never done. i know how much better i'd look today and how my sinus cavities would feel if i'd never smoked. i probably subtracted 5 years from my life, even though i was never a heavy smoker.
If you think you can't do it, you need to recognize that that voice is your addiction talking to you. you don't control it. it controls you. it has power over you. it wants to kill you. it wants to keep you from being healthy and here you are, in a support group full of people who desperately want to get better and live longer.
see your doc and get pharmaceutical help if needed. or go cold turkey so you can see how painful it is to fight for control of your life. i'm rebellious and would rather offend some pious nonsmoker by lighting up than be part of the crowd who think they're so much better than me because they don't eat gluten or some crap like that. Seattle is full of phonies. But because i have damaged my body with cigarettes, i choose not to smoke (i do smoke once in a while, rarely and socially) because i don't want anyone (thing) telling me what to do.
i hope you quit. i'm on your side. Be a winner.