More than 36 hours post nicotine

Obviously I haven't gone 3 weeks yet, which was my longest quit ever - two years ago with Joe - who is still quit by the way.  I do think a day and a half is pretty good though.  And no candy binge-ing - thank God.  I did tear up some gum in the van driving around yesterday afternoon though, but I got smart and picked up some sugarfree while I was out.  My biggest revelation of the day has been that I am afraid.  I am deathly afraid not to smoke.  I don't know how to do it.  So I stay put in this damn chair and dwell on it - but casually - not obsessively like a few times in the past.  I do not feel as tired today, but I do feel scared.  I am almost in tears, like a child being forced on a roller coaster.  In acknowledging my fear factor - I realized that I have used cigarettes as a crutch to steer clear of every emotion out there.  Fear, joy, fear, happiness, sadness.  I realized that I have no clue how to handle life without a cigarette.  I mean I am doing it now but more like an inmate in prison living and breathing everyday - but put him on on the streets, and unless he goes back to his illegal ways, to live legal and morally - he has a heart attack and dies.

And rereading that I wonder if Satan himself wrote it.  I won't have a heart attack and die, and if I cry - fine cry - I have smoked for over 28 years and will miss it.  The nicotine will be out of my body soon which will greatly help me start to really heal the absence of a life long parasite (so wanted to put friend or even enemy, but parasite is perfect - it fed off me and is nothing unless I light it and inhale it).  Regardless, I have not lived day in and day out with any other noun for as long as I have with cigarettes.  This Chantix medicine is good though, because I swear to you.  I am not having any cravings, only fear of living without cigarettes, unless that is what a craving is.  Hmmmmm.  That doesn't make sense - contextually - anyways, because chewing gum or keeping a pencil in my hand or snapping a rubberband against my wrist doesn't begin to help calm my nerves before a meeting presentation or relax me after a heated discussion with my husband or teenaged daughters.

I will miss taking breaks in the fall and drinking chocolate milk with my cigarette.  I still miss my very first cigarettes in the morning.  It is so hard to get out of the bed.  It's like I need a different reward in the morning to help coax me out of bed.

15.5 hours...

Got a shower, BRUSHED MY TEETH :-D, and got dressed.  Even put a little product in my hair.  Pretty.  I smell really good - thanks to a sale at BBW last week, in which I picked up night blooming jasmine gel and lotion, and luckily the package was on my front doorstep just before I took my shower.  I feel like I could fall asleep though.  Tired eyes, tired mind, tired bum from sitting on this chair for so long this morning/today.  Too late for a nap today, but tomorrow I think I will plan for one.  My inner core kinda really wants to run downstairs and do a quick declutter, but my outter layer refuses to move.  Ugghhhh - I am a blob with a brain and wifi.  I haven't drank much today - perhaps I will grab a water bottle and head downstairs.  ===>>> To be continued.....

In the 13th hour

The main things I am noticing are craving candy (possibly from past quits), tightly shrugged shoulders and obsessing over it (but in a good way).  Just spending my free time downloading apps, checking on my SFW FB peeps.  Afraid to go for a ride.  Heck, I would almost venture to say I am afraid to get up and do anything.....shower, eat, go to the basement.  I need to go find me something like a needle point project that I can set a timer for and take breaks to work on it.

5 Things to do on Your Quit Day

Let's have a smoke free day....which will hopefully turn into a week and a month and a lifetime =)

11 hours smoke free!   Go me!

5 Things to do on Your Quit Day

One at Noon and then....at 1230pm on a partly sunny day...

I smoked the final cigarette of my entire life!  And two and a half hours later - I am still so excited!

I made the following note in my book, at the end, where I read "You are now a Happy Non-smoker";
I am not deprived!  THAT is ludicrous!  I am finally FREE!  Free at last, free at last, Thank God Almighty I am free at last!!!  I am living life now!  I am a non-smoker!  I am having FUN!  YIPPEE!  Bad days won't ever be as bad as they were and good days will be better than I can ever remember!

I love that I don't have to stop thinking about smoking or cigarettes.  When I think of them - I KNOW I am not a smoker - I am free!  I am so excited and elated and blessed to be free of the nicotine addiction.  I am not an Ex-smoker that feels something is missing and/or tries to substitute for it.  I am living life - pure and simple.  I am a non-smoker.  Thank you God and thank you Allen Carr.

As for timing - I have a feeling that on or around February 31st, 2013, I will experience my Moment of Revelation, and that will forever mark my Welcome Back anniversary.  Corny, but hey - having fun IS corny sometimes.  And I am all about fun now!  =)

Another at 910am [eop]

I have smoked 5 more in about 20 hours time

I already wrote about that first one.  I know i had one at 6am this morning and one now at 9am.  And i had one before bed, say 830pm.  The other two were somewhere in between the first and the last yesterday.  I am reading Easyway by Allan Carr and am exited to be a complete non-smoker with no desire to ever smoke again very soon.  I did want my quit date to be the 25th-- but I am seeing now that it will likely end up being the 30th or 31st of February, like I originally told Jaime years ago.  Of course that date doesn't actually exist, so that was one of my idiotic ways of putting off 'giving up' smoking forever.  Ha HA!  But the date can exist, it just is actually March 1st or 2nd.  Anyways...back to the book.  =)

All alone and to the 7-11 I go

The children were all at school and daycare.  Husband left for work.  I am working from home and come out of my home office and go upstairs.   I pick up my phone and my car keys.  I locate my credit card in my purse and put it in my hand.  I remember that I have a coupon for a pack of cigarettes and then worry for a second that I threw it away during the quit "prep".  I find it though, just where it should have been.  After standing in the kitchen hallway for what seemed like an eternity, and thinking of everyone that I may disappoint if I do this, I finally walk outside, lock the front door and drive to the 7-11.  Making excuses the whole way, thinking I could just have one at night before going to bed and one in the morning - two a day isn't bad - right?  I must admit that there is a very, very small voice saying, this is all just a test, go two minutes and just don't smoke.  I decide that if I go back to smoking I will not smoke in the car.  I visualize smoking outside of the car before leaving work in the afternoon (there went the idea of just two cigarettes a day).  I bought the pack.  Easy, peasy.  Remembering that I told someone on CN that not having to go through yesterday again and the money would help keep me in the quit.  The money doesn't really matter.  It's not like I am destitute and have to decide whether to eat or feed my children or buy a pack.  Ugghhh.  I just want to be normal and FEEL normal, not tired or obsessed.  I want to think about my work, and family, and house and schedule CLEARLY.  I am so sick of cigarettes.  The fact that last night Joe said he's ready to get a divorce and I spent time researching a person to mediate it, really makes me feel alone in all this.  I smoked a cigarette once I got home at 153pm.  And I feel physically ill!  I HATE THIS!  I want to barf but I need to shower and work and take out the trash and pick up children and feed them dinner and get them ready for bed, and somewhere in between make some time to have fun with them, and watch them grow before my eyes.

Good and Good God Almighty

From one end of the spectrum to the other I have traveled.  Sometimes multiple travels in the span of a second or two.  But for the most part - yesterday morning/day 1/8 hours as a nonsmoker - I did good.  I awake praising and praying to God.  I got showered.  I moved slower than normal, and I altered my thoughts a couple times, but I was proud and I did good.  Driving to work, I did good.  Talking to people - I did okay, I guess.  Not my usual kind, sweet self.  This new self was direct and uncaring.  Hopefully that will change.

From around hour 16 on - I have prayed Good God Almighty MANY times, one time even praying that he keep me from strangling my children, which I would never physically do but they were just jumping up and down on that nerve that nicodemon was using to remind me of how much I missed just walking away and sitting outside with a cigarette.  HMPF!  It was raining this morning, so I'm good.

I'm babbling now.  Other items of interest - I left work early yesterday to come home and take a nap.  It  helped I am sure - whether it's the nicotine leaving the body or fighting the body or depression over missing the stinky bastards (I put water in my jar - holy moley - it smells) - I am tired and I am going to get some more sleep today.  I have not used the nicotine gum, and probably won't.  I have faith in cold turkey.  Even though I am only using my brain to write this post - it definitely doesn't feel as foggy as it did yesterday.  I think if I just work to change the way I do other things for a bit - I'll quit linking them to smoking - like walk down the stairs backwards or use both hands to let the dogs out OR I could put their leashes on and take them for a walk!  Then I'd get the exercise everyone is telling the newbies we need on Cessation Nation FB app.

I HATE THAT I SMOKED!  AND WHAT IT IS DOING TO ME NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I didn't drink any water yesterday - just finished 1st bottle (2 8oz cups) today - going to get another - I want to flush that damn nicotine out as fast as possible.

Halfway through the first day!

Since 25. February 2013: 13 hours smoke free, 10 cigarettes non-smoked, $2.34 saved and 0 product(s) achieved.

I'm tired though and could really use a nap.

I QUIT! And this time I mean it!

After receiving the Smoke Stoppers kit I requested from a work website, I decided to give it another try.  Following their plan almost exactly for days 5, 4, and 3, I am now at the end of day 2, and I am 99% sure that I want today to be my last smoke day.  Why?  Because it's the 25th and I love that day of the month, always reminding myself and others how long it is until Christmas. The most wonderful day of the year!  And even though I am better prepared with this quit, and just took a dose of Tobaccoff, returning to a nonsmoker is only possible thanks to the Holy Trinity.  All three will be needed and depended on to make this most amazing accomplishment possible!