Nov-8-2013

Seven days. I know to so many on here it doesnt seem like much. To me it seems crazy. It use to seem unimaginable. I've noticed some things. I always thought if I ever tried to quit that the entire time I was going to be wanting one...thinking about one....obsessing. I thought that would be every second of every day. It sounded like misery. When I quit on November 1st I coincidentally had gotten sick and so it made it easier because eh cigarettes arent that good when you have a cold. that lasted the weekend then I had work. I found that I didnt really think about it like I thought I would. I was never tempted these seven days to go buy a pack. I had a day or two where stressful things happened and it was hard, so hard, to find something to else to do and I ended up just having to be pissed and letting it fade away just like it would have anyway even if I had had a cigarette. That was hard. Mostly, though, I found myself feeling like I was in another person's body/life. Emotional mess is an understatement at times. not because I wanted one...just because there is so much emotion. Also, as many will agree, smoking is a social thing. I made so many friends over the years that way. Work....almost everyone who smokes talks to everyone else that smokes...thats how you make your friends your first days...or meet people you would never have noticed had a chance to speak to before. It's almost like you share something special with each other and have some kind of bond that makes you auto-friends. Now that I am at my first weekend of not being sick and not smoking I dont know what to do with myself. I'm drinking hot tea and chewing gum. Oh boy.

I think I understand something a little bit that I didn't before. When people get out of prison after being in it for a decade or more and they just don't know what to do, they aren't themselves....they have no idea how to function and feel more comfortable in that confined prison that is so familiar to them that they find themselves just wanting to go back to it. This may be the dumbest thing anyone's said/related smoking to.... but I really feel I was in a different life...I was in a prison. A prison with a routine and a certain thing to do in any given circumstance that came up. Then I walked out of the prison. Just like with a real prisoner set free, I know just what I would have to do to land myself back in that world, that place, that would make me feel comfortable and at home. I know it lies just right up the street and costs about 5 bucks....It's right there.... just like that crime someone has to commit to wind up back in that confined comfortable place for them is right in front of them constantly, all day every day.

I know nicotine is a prison. Its a dark place....but it's a place I know so well. And now I am having to get to know a new place. Understand everything in a different way. React to everything in a new way. Look at everything a new way. And it can be so confusing and so overwhelming all at once. As much as it has seemed easier than I thought it would be and built it up to be it is also hard....especially mentally. Especially when that little addict in my head tries to talk to me and I have to attempt to shut him the hell up....and it's so hard to shut him up when you are alone and not around people.

week one down though. Here's to hoping to stay out of that prison.