I just want to explain a bit more about myself. I think my situation is different to a lot of people.
Hardly anyone actually knows I smoke. My best friend knows and she wants me to quit too. Some of my other friends have asked me about it because it's hard to cover it up completely but I always deny it and say the smell must be from my mom. I don't smoke while I'm at school. It's mostly just at home. I usually smoke a few cigarettes before school and then a lot after school when I get home. I'm used to going all day at school without one. I thought that would make it easier to quit. I get cravings in the afternoon but I can handle those. I also haven't been smoking for as long as most people but I did start when I was very young. I didn't start because of peer pressure or anything. I was just on my own. And it happened at a very difficult time for my mom and me. I started before covid and increased a lot during the lockdowns when I was at home.
I know everyone says to work out my triggers and avoid them. But I don't think I have ones like most people do. I do smoke when I’m doing homework so I suppose that’s one. I’ve been trying not to do that. I can't say I hate smoking because actually I don't. I enjoy it. But I also don't want to be a smoker. I want to quit before it affects my health. And I hate trying to cover it up all the time. Especially around boys lol.
When I first thought about quitting I read an article about how bad secondhand smoke was for kids because lungs aren’t fully developed until you are much older. It made me cry because I’ve been breathing smoke directly into my lungs since I was 9!!! I hope I haven’t already done too much damage to my body. There’s nothing I can do about that now but I know the sooner I quit the better. So far I haven’t noticed any problems with my breathing. I play sports during summer so I think I’m quite fit. Maybe that helps. But I did get very sick when I had covid and I had a cough that lasted for a long time. I don’t know if that was worse because I smoke but it’s possible. My friends who had it didn’t get very sick.
After reading a lot of information on here I was already expecting it to be difficult to quit. But I thought I could handle it. I had no idea I would feel as bad as I did. After a couple of days I just couldn't cope. I cried a lot. I had a headache all the time. My lungs felt horrible. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sit still. At the time I thought I was the only one who had to go through that. But I know everyone goes through similar stuff. It was definitely much worse than I expected though. So I'm now just trying to work out how I can deal with everything better next time.
My main plan to distract myself was to do a lot of exercise because that always takes my mind off smoking. But the weather wasn't great so I couldn't go outside much. And I also felt so bad, especially with the headache, that I couldn't make myself do anything anyway. I did have things like candies and other stuff to eat. I don’t like cinnamon much so that’s not so good. I made an air cigarette which helped sometimes. I didn't use gum or lozenges or patches because I know it's going to slow down my quit. But I think next time I'm going to try it. Maybe just for the first few days. It might just help enough so I can do the other things like exercise. I know some people don’t agree with doing that but I think stopping smoking has to be most important thing. I read that post about Ellen getting addicted to lozenges so I want to be careful.
I love that everyone is so understanding on here. I didn’t even want to post anything at the start because I was worried what people would think of me. But I know now that everyone just wants me to quit. I really do appreciate everyone's support and ideas and suggestions. But at the same time it's been very overwhelming for me. Trying to work everything out in my head has been hard.
Anyway that was a stupidly long post lol. Sorry! I am determined to do this. I'm going to do this! I just need to work out what’s gonna work.
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