Share your quitting journey
I'd been thinking about blogging for the last month or so but kept putting it off - perhaps I felt a bit embarrassed. As fate would have it, in my inbox today was the blog from several months ago by gregp136 No Embarrassment Allowed.
I am still smoke free!! However, it's only been about 45 days that I have been nicotine free. When I quit, I decided to use the NRT lozenges because I'd had the best success before using an NRT. I even decided I'd use it to get me through NML and then I would taper off. So instead of 3 months, say 5 months. I ended up using it 7 months.
I'm not but so ashamed - even if I was still using the lozenges, it's FAR better than smoking. Nicotine is not what kills you, it's what keeps you hooked. As I think about it, nicotine is not what gave me the "feeling" that I was after from smoking. It's not what dulls your mind, covers you feelings - that seems to be the work of the carbon monoxide and other chemicals clouding your brain. (In my opinion, anyway).
Here's what else I learned - the NRTs really do take the edge off. While using them, I thought about smoking but never really seriously considered smoking. After 7 months of not smoking, when I quit using the NRTs, the thoughts of smoking were more prevalent than they'd been since month 2. I've seriously had thoughts of smoking again - I walked past the tobacco store close to work today and the thought was seriously there. I had to dismiss it several times. I don't do that anymore!!
So here I am. Wishing more than anything that I would rarely think about smoking anymore - yet I think about it virtually every day. I'd distanced myself from this site hoping it would help me stop thinking about smoking and yet...
I shouldn't be too hard on myself, after 40+ years of smoking, it's gonna take time to learn how to live without it. I tell myself now when I think about cigarettes - you've come WAY TOO FAR to go back now! It would taste horrible! Do I really want to have to "find" places and the time to smoke? To hide it as I felt the need to do so often? To tell my wife and myself that I blew it? I think not. Most Definitely Not.
Doug
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