I feel like an ex smoker. I honestly cannot believe this. It's all happening so fast, I almost don't trust it.
My husband & I both agree that a HUGE key to my success is not having anyone in my life that smokes. I honestly can't imagine doing this with a smoker in my home or even having a friend that engaged in it.
It's funny...so I was a nurse at a nursing home for 10 years. Everybody loved me - I was often requested to be the one to work with, frequently told I was someone's favorite nurse, etc. i worked there full time + for the first 5 years, weekends only the last 5. I hated that job. Hated it with a passion. Nursing homes are just very frustrating & exhausting places to work, if you were not aware 
When we learned that the home would be closing down due to financial reasons late last year, I barely cared. I'd been begging my husband to figure out a way for me to stay home full time with my kids (5, 4, 3 & 1) for at least a year, & this just gave us the final push we needed. Towards the end it pretty much just turned into a sh*t show (nurses stealing narcotics, boss no longer enforcing any policies/rules, all staff just basically phoning it in, etc). All my coworkers told me they'd miss me so much, several SWORE to meet up with me for drinks or whatever to get me out of the house. I was so grateful to be finally getting out of a job that I despised so much that I really wasn't worried about missing any of my coworkers. Two things occurred that I did NOT count on: never leaving the house & never speaking to anyone over the age of 5 is the recipe for intense loneliness, stir craziness & just straight up depression. The second shocker for me was that not a single person I used to work with followed up on their plans to "get me out of the house" I'll get a text every so often asking me how I'm doing, but I get radio silence in return when I respond by saying how lonely I am & that I NEED adult interaction. I honestly don't get it. These were people I'd hang out with regularly after work. BUT...if my job had never closed & these people had never left me out in the wind like this, I'd still be smoking. Everyone I worked with -despite constantly b*tching about how much they hated their jobs- cried for months after they announced the closing. Me? I approached the 25 year old administrator that had been hired < a year earlier & thanked him for allowing me to leave a job I hated to be a full time stay at home mother, something I'd only dreamed of since I was 12 years old. I wish I could reach out again & thank him again for driving the company into the ground because it finally freed me from a disgusting, embarrassing & expensive habit.
I've never said this about myself before, but I am doing AWESOME! Ohhh those first 5 days were hard. And yes, as I wrote in my last blog post, I did not see ANY light at the end of the tunnel. All I kept thinking about was when I could be quit long enough that I could finally sneak a cheater smoke.
I like to drink about once a week. In fact, it's just about always once a week. My original plan was to stay sober for at least a month in order to protect my quit. Well I was climbing the WALLS on Saturday, just needing to get out of the house. I was so irritable that I thought I was having an intense craving. It took me awhile to realize that I really just wanted to get out of the house. So after kids & husband had dinner ready on the table ready for them, I went to a bar. A bar different than the one I usually go to (didn't want to talk to somebody I'd be comfortable bumming a smoke from). It was hard. I was edgy. Which was disappointing because I was so looking forward to *really* unwinding. But listen to what happened: an acquaintance ran into me at this bar & talked my ear off about her family for probably 10 minutes all the while smoking a cigarette! Okay, in all honesty I did ask her to stand a little closer to me just so I could get a whiff, but that's as far as it went! (I feel badly that she was going on about how her daughter's a drug addict & destroying the family & all I could focus on was that smell, but I'm still proud of myself 
)
After I spoke to her, I realized how much it meant to me that I truly be able to unwind that night, so (I know this will be majorly frowned upon here) I went to a vape shop & got a pen with some 0 nicotine juice. Total relaxation was achieved after that. I do not believe vaping is 100% safe, I've read the theories on here that the nicotine free juices are not necessarily so, but after a particularly stressful week, I had decided that I very much wanted to let go. It was nice knowing that I could enjoy a few beers with my husband withOUT cigarettes. This is the first time I've ever been able to say that. My next goal will be to get rid of the vaping (which I plan on only doing while I'm drinking). I had no desire to do it again since the one night I used it, so we'll see how challenging this proves to be.
Come at me, week #2!
