Addictions

First and foremost, I will admit here and now that I have a smoking problem. And I'd like to quit. I really would. I'm hoping that I'll be on the road to recovery, and with a lot of support and help from my friends, I'll make it.
The history of my smoking problem began some time sophomore year, when I was taking 6.002. I smoked my first MOSFET right there in the lab. No one was around except for Steph and Natan. It was just the three of us, and we were all good friends back then. What's a little puff of magic smoke between friends? And we had the galls to go back up to the equipment desk and ask for more. It was mostly harmless - just a little static and failure to ground. Hell, between the three of us, we smoked a whole bag of MOSFETs. We just didn't have enough.
For a while, I thought that was going to be enough. I'd gotten my kicks. College rebellion, and all that. Or so I thought.
The big problem, of course, came around this term. Junior year stress and all, what with 6.115 always looming overhead. Deadlines, all-nighters and stress like you couldn't imagine. Taking two course 6 classes on top of .115, not a stellar idea, you could imagine, but I was dead-set against letting anyone dissuade me otherwise. And that's of course when my smoking problem really flared up.
I was used to the small stuff from before, but now we were playing in the major leagues. ICs. The 6.115 kits came with a *whole bag* of 'em. All different sizes and pinouts. Pure smooth silicon pleasure.
And so, of course, one can imagine, that since I'd never dealt with stress on this kind of a level before, Lab 2 left me a total mess. I smoked myself a real huge one then. An 8254. Wow. You should've smelled the smoke coming out of that one. It left the chip hot.
Man, after that, it was all downhill from there - DACs, LCD controllers, LEDs, oh man. You name it, I'd smoked it.
By then, of course, I realized that this was a huge problem. My grades were being affected drastically by my propensity to smoke. I tried and tried to quit, but then I, like all addicts eventually do, realized I couldn't. It wasn't in my power. And like all addicts, I was afraid to seek out help? Who would I ask? A TA, who would ask me to justify and account for every last IC I'd smoked? No way - fight The Man!
It was then that I realized that my most important resource was, in fact, not my TAs, but the knowledge base and support of the close friends I had around me. Those who'd turned away from the allure of smoking components, those who by sheer competence alone could say "no thanks."
And so, with a little help from my friends, I've been cutting back. And I'm happy to say that I've taken the first steps on the road to recovery.
Today... yes, today, I only smoked 2 IR LEDs. I had a whole bag of them, and I could've smoked 'em all, but I realized that I was smoking away good money. My own money.
And so...
So the long hard journey begins.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

P.S. for hilarity, go to http://weebls-stuff.com/toons/23/
P.P.S. In a moment of clairvoyance, I realized that somewhere in civilized society, we should definitely make room for "rite of the ex," in which exes are allowed to ritually cover and plaster their ex's current S.O.s in dog shit should they feel that the current S.O. is doing an improper job in care and maintenance. On that note, let me see if Cheshire's ready to lay a load line for me yet.