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Share your quitting journey

This is 7 days

Freedomcat
Member
3 20 160

I'm going to be extremely honest here. I don't mean to scare anyone off from quitting. I just need to share my experience, get it out, get support, express myself. 

I'm currently at 6 days, 15 hours, 35 minutes and 28 seconds (great app I've got, Quit Tracker). 

I am in a really dark place. 

I feel lifeless and hopeless. And I'm just crying, on and off. 

Today is my first day back at work after vacation. I'm working from home today and have only been able to work for about 3 hours....where I should have already worked 7 hours. 

I have been wavering between panic/terror, grief, depression, anxiety/anger/restlessness. I want to want to do things that are good for me. But I have no motivation. I'm not very hungry and am not eating very much...where I typically eat ALOT. I'm drinking alot of coffee, it seems like the only thing that I have left to be excited about. The only drug I still have available to me. All the other addictive things that could bring a dopamine rush I'm not interested in. Shopping, eating chocolate, exercise, walking in nature, etc, etc. I don't want to do anything...and I don't want to NOT do anything. I feel stuck and scared and pissed and like I don't care about ANYTHING. 

I think I'm feeling stuff I haven't felt for 19 years. The pain of traumatic experiences and loss that I've run from. And I think when I am able to move the energy, feel the feelings, cry with a supportive person, let myself be supported,...that it is healing. 

I don't know how to live without cigarettes yet. I have no fucking idea how to live. it feels like EVERYTHING in my life is connected with cigarettes. My thoughts especially. 

I am often thinking about what's to come...about the rest of the day, about tomorrow. and these thoughts always include smoking. i imagine myself smoking. walking to whereever i'm going and smoking. smoking in between things. smoking before and after things. now....without the smoking, the rest of the picture seems pale and bland. If I can't smoke I just don't want to do anything! 

I feel so desperate. Like I have nothing left to live for. 

I don't want to smoke. I want to get to the other side of this. I know it's either...go through this, or live the rest of my life as a nicotine addict and end up sad, alone, sick, shameful, dead. 

I'd love to hear your experiences of this time. if you were able to heal and live a full life. I don't want to distract from this pain. I want to move through it...feel it, heal it. I have been addicted to so many things in my life....food, starvation, cleaning, control, alcohol, men, coffee. If I distract and hide from these feelings and try to numb them, I'm still running. 

But this is hard. 

Sorry to be a downer. This is the reality of where I'm at. And the reality of the early days of the quit journey. who knew smoking meant so much to me. 

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