Ah, yes, the addictive brain. It works overtime sometimes. It tells you that no one listens to you. Everyone misconstrues what you're talking about. Nobody wants to be around you anymore. No one cares. Maybe it's just me that's angry all the time. Why can't everyone just cooperate and do what they're supposed to do. The dialogue goes on and on and on.
I don't hear that much anymore, but I sure did the first 6 months of my quit. It was like the carrot in front of the greyhound at the track just replaying over and over and over. I remember that conversation from years ago. That voice always made me slip up. Had me running back to the store to get a pack because that solved everything. I'll deal with it tomorrow. Let me just have it today. I can't do it right now.
I remember vividly my first 30 days. I was crawling the walls. I was foggy, couldn't concentrate, tired all the time, yelling at everything and everybody. I had this tension that I just couldn't get rid of. I ripped up so much wallpaper and shelving paper in this house. I cleaned windows, ceiling fans, ripped apart my home office, washed curtains. I went through cupboards and rearranged things. The first 2 weeks I didn't have any work which helped a great deal because I could distract myself constantly.
I think the most frustrating part of quitting was the concentration for the first 6 months. My job is not physical but requires a lot of head work, research, grammar, sentence structure, conflict resolution. In the beginning I had to do a lot of things twice because I was missing so much. Then I learned to slow down and keep track of what I was doing. I had to revamp the way I worked to keep on top of it. I adapted.
Quitting smoking is just that. We have to learn to adapt to our new way of life. Learn new coping skills. Try different things. Move things around. Change things up. You smoked on your porch; rearrange it. You drank coffee with a cigarette; drink with the opposite hand. You stood; sit down. You smoked in your car driving; hide the ashtray or put it in the freezer. Take a different route to work or back home. Switch things up. Create new memories that don't involve smoking. Have fun with it, be adventurous, just take it one day at a time. You can do this; you really can !!!!!
