TravellingSunny

I'm buying a book that teaches one how to make Kumihimo braided necklaces. I can learn a new craft that I've been wanting to try for a long time, and as a special bonus, I get to keep my hands busy.

Memoirs of my fifth day not smoking (here in list form for your entertainment): Woke up tired. My body, while nicotine free, is still greatly missing the stimulants. Got out of bed and made coffee. Laid back down in the bed and tried to decide if quitting smoking constituted a legitimate need for a sick day. Got out of bed again and got dressed. Went to work. Chewed three pieces of gum during the seven mile drive. Arrived at work, dropped personals off in my office, went to kitchenette to make coffee. Ate five Twizzlers while waiting for the coffee to perk. Checked email, logged in to QuitTrain. Ate a bacon, egg, and cheese buscuit, and then took my daily Chantix pill. Logged in to QuitTrain. Reading about quitting gives me the craves. Ate five more Twizzlers and logged out of QuitTrain. Began working on an analysis; got severely distracted by a speck of floating dust, ate a Twizzler. Didn't help. Ate four more. Pulled analysis back up and realized I wanted a cigarette. Logged in to QuitTrain, and NOPE'd again for good measure. Let calls continue to go to voice mail - no desire to be fired for a mouthing off today. Looked at analysis. Added some numbers. The sum line looked like a cigarette. Sucked on a lolllipop. Recalculated because my addition was wrong. Logged in to QuitTrain. Played Chicks or Sticks for five minutes while deep breathing. Dammit. My math was STILL wrong. Recalculated. Got more coffee. Noticed the clock. I have only been at work for seventeen minutes. Ate two more Twizzlers. Phoned a friend. Re-committed to being ultra-productive at work today, but played Chicks and Sticks instead. Googled whether or not anyone has ever died from quitting smoking. Googled whether or not anyone has ever been convicted of murder while quitting smoking. Googled how many calories are in a Twizzler. Ate twelve more Twizzlers. Committed to exercising every time I get a craving. Ate lunch. Food exacerbated the whole tired feeling. Got another cup of coffee. Had a craving, thought seriously about getting some exercise. Ate a Twizzler instead. Walked to the store to buy more Twizzlers. Logged in to QuitTrain. Tried to complete analysis - realized it's not going to happen today - decided to work on system testing instead. While test system booting up, logged in to QuitTrain. Got distracted by Chicks and Sticks and forgot about test system. Ate thirty-two Twizzlers in a fit of the craves. Felt ill from Twizzlers and considered walking to the ladies room to evacuate. Decided I was too tired for that much activity. Made a fresh pot of coffee. Forgot to drink any of it. Ate some rice crisps. Not sweet enough. Ate three more Twizzlers. Closed test system and cleared voice mail messages. Sent tasks to everyone in the office to call these people back so I don't get fired for mouthing off to them. Logged in to QuitTrain. NOPE'd again. Ate three Twizzlers while watching the clock tick down to quitting time. Discovered the time-slowing properties of quitting smoking. Left work an hour early. Chewed two pieces of gum on the seven mile drive home. Drank an ale. With Twizzlers. Ate dinner. Watched Girl's Trip, which was funny enough for me to not think about smoking at all for like two whole hours. Ate an entire box Mike & Ike's. And popcorn. Opened another ale, set it down on the counter to go to the bathroom, forgot about the ale and went to bed early.

Hell Week is almost a wrap. I know nothing miraculous is going to happen to suddenly make this easier on day 8, but I am looking forward to having a whole week under my quit belt. In other news, I'm still super-worried about continuing to take this Chantix medicine. It DID help me successfully get through the first couple of weeks the last time I quit, but it made me Crazy with a capital C. This time, I've deliberately only taken half a dose rather than a whole dose to avoid the nausea and hopefully dampen the crazy. I haven't had much in the way of side-effects this way, which is great, but I still don't like the idea of taking it. So, I called my doctor about it today, and she says I can take it every other day for a week (that'll be Heck Week, I'm thinking) and then I can stop taking it. And then maybe I'll stop feeling like I'm using a crutch to do this and can do it all by myself.

NOPE

Ooooh! Aversion therapy... there's possibility here...

Twizzlers are a brand name, but I think my Australian sisters (one in Perth and one in Broome) would just call it red licorice. I eat the strawberry flavored ones.

2

Too busy eating to write a blog today. I need to be saved from myself - can someone please just tape my mouth closed so I can't eat anymore junk food???

Monday after driving home from work (my third quit day) I immediately set to scrubbing, vacuuming, and wiping every surface in my car. Sadly, it's a relatively new car that I've only had for about two years. Vehemently refused to allow ANYBODY to smoke in my new vehicle. Even after picking up the habit again, I still wouldn't smoke in my car. Then, about a month or so ago, I decided ONE wouldn't stink it up. Then another, and another. Very disappointed in myself, but thankfully I didn't completely ruin the interior. I think it's been saved from the stench.

2

Every day will be different; it may be better today and then tough again tomorrow. But, every tough day will slowly get easier and easier. Yesterday was a real beast for me as well. I want to be happy and proud of myself, but I'm just miserable. Try to remember how much more miserable you will be if you break your commitment to yourself. You can totally do this. We'll do it together.

Got in my car yesterday after work and blindly started reaching for a pack of cigarettes. What an eye-opener that was... such an ingrained habit that even as I sat there mentally reminding myself that a craving won't kill me and that I'm a non-smoker, my traitor hands went rummaging for my pack of cigarettes without permission from my brain. It's a good thing I don't actually have any cigarettes, because I would probably have lit up out of habit before my brain actually registered what my traitor hands were doing. LOL!

Congratulations, Rose! Two weeks is awesome!

I'm so proud of you, Rusty! Sounds like you are really having a tough time this go round, but you're doing great! You really are! My husband still smokes, and he goes outside as well, but I understand exactly where you're at. You can do this. You're almost at a week already. You know it will get easier, right? It will. I promise. Just don't smoke!!

Not today.

Reminder to self: STILL NOPE.

You never realize how long a minute is until you quit smoking.

Scary stuff.

OMG, thank you. This just made my afternoon!

You hang in there too, Rusty! And, thank you for the giggle. The image of you with a wad of smokes and a blow torch to your face just tickled me. I actually feel a bit better now.

Quitting is easy. Just don't smoke. We stubbed out twenty cigarettes or more every day that we were smoking. See? It's easy-peasy. Staying quit is hard. Very hard. And while I know it gets easier, I also personally know folks (my father, for instance) who gave up smoking over a decade ago, and he still wants a cigarette. Every day. He just doesn't act on the impulse anymore because he knows it will kill him. That's a very depressing concept for me, and I'm certain he struggles because he didn't have a support group and he didn't educate himself on addiction. He just did what his doctor told him and stopped smoking. I want more than that. I want to NOT want to smoke. I thought I was there... but I DID want to smoke. I just didn't want to quit again. This time, I really need to get my head wrapped around the concept of not romanticizing the cigarette. Not look for ways to get around the addiction. (I've seen all kinds of exceptions - allowing yourself a cheat day once or twice a year, using nicotine-free vaporizors, etc.) But, for me, I think as long as I'm looking for a way to cheat, I'm still romanticizing it. Hello. My name is Sunny and I'm a quitter.

*sigh* This exact thought kept my quit solid for five years. I had several unfortunate events throughout that five years, and never did I ever want to have to quit again. An exceptionally bad day finally broke me. And, I keep thinking back to that moment that I CHOSE to go swipe a pack from my husband's stash and partake. I keep thinking "Why on EARTH did I do that when I KNEW I didn't ever want to have to quit again." All I can come up with is that in the thick of it, I didn't even think about how hard it would be to quit again. I didn't think about everything that I'd gone through to become a non-smoker. I wasn't thinking about anything except my bad day and how I NEEDED to have a cigarette so that I could get in control of my thoughts and address the situation. This time I'm gonna need something else to keep me quit. I still don't want to go through quitting again, but I know that thought won't work for me. It's gonna have to be me. It's gonna have to be getting it through my thick skull that the cigarette will NOT help me control my thoughts. It will not calm me down. So, so hard to make myself believe that. I know it's true in my mind, but my body just doesn't buy it yet.

Oh, man, here come the craves. All was relatively well until I ate lunch. I've been wandering the halls bothering co-workers for the past twenty minutes because no way am I getting any real work done right now.

Day 3 lasted for-freaking-ever. First day back to work after quitting, and I had exactly zero concentration. Glued to my support system all day, I really didn't get anything productive accomplished. While it feels like I wasted the entire day mooning over the emptiness of not smoking, I can't really say it was a waste, can I? I mean, that's one more day under my quit belt - and the last day (supposedly) of nicotine in my system. So, with the physical withdrawals done (mine consisted of sweaty palms, shaking hands, and a whole lot of whining), I guess it's time to start "ferociously" addressing the emotional withdrawals. I just wish I knew HOW. A fellow quitter (Sazerac) suggested to me yesterday that I: Get ferocious about banishing your smoking/not smoking thoughts. Replace them with something that feels good, sounds good, looks good. I know it is hard, and it nearly made me really crazy but, the earlier you take control of your brain, the easier it gets. I wish I had been more aggressive sooner re-programming my brain. Sounds easy in theory, but I am still "romancing" the cigarette. Yes, yes I am. I still think I wasn't entirely ready for this quit; I didn't have a count-down, I didn't clean everything beforehand, I didn't even have that last cigarette outside the night before I quit. SEE? The romance isn't dead over here. I want to smoke, but I also want to be a non-smoker. God, how gross is that? Smoking smells bad. It makes my teeth and fingertips yellow. It gives me more wrinkles than I've earned. And those are just the VAIN reasons. There's also emphysema (I see my father slowly suffocating even with his oxygen machine), there's cancer (oh, a whole family history - everything from cervical to skin to breast to brain), there's heart disease (not-so-much in the family history, but I'll be darned if I'm going to tempt that fate). I'm totally embarrassed by the way I perceive non-smokers being able to smell it on me. My kids hate it. My family hates it. I hate it. And, I still want to smoke. It won't even do me any good right now - I've been taking that Chantix medicine, so it's blocking the nicotine receptors making it so even if I DO smoke, I still won't get that release of dopamine. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It just doesn't seem to matter how much I know about this addiction, I still can't control that little nicotine voice in my head that tries to tell me I can have complete control over it. I KNOW I WON'T AND CAN'T, but I keep thinking that I can. And, my mind can be very convincing. So, I'll keep battling and blogging. Because, I also know it's going to get better. It's going to get easier. And, I am going to figure out how to retrain my brain.

@Missdixie I see your ticker says you're coming up on your one year anniversary! CONGRATULATIONS!! Well done!