I read your blog and my first thought was - Wow it's so full of negatives: "It's not easy.. I hate...I don't have... I stopped talking...I stopped going...waste of time...don't use...don't post... doesn't help me..." is it any wonder you aren't having any fun yet in this quitting process?! And I was thinking Ellen's (Elvan's post) was dead on. It sounded much like something I would have said to you in that heat of the moment of caring so deeply. Sometimes us old timers need to rant BECAUSE we care so deeply. Because we see excuses that the newbies simply don't and can't because they aren't educated enough to see them. But WE do. And we just want to riotously shake some sense into you.
I don't presume to understand what it's like to be bi-polar. But I don't think Ellen was trying to drill into your head not to smoke so much as she was saying - look at the excuses you're making to be unhappy with your decision. Look at the excuses you're focusing on to be miserable. Look at the excuses you're presenting that will allow failure.
We have to change our thinking when we quit smoking. Because if we don't we'll be miserable forever. Part of our quit journey is learning to change our thinking. It's not just changing our patterns of behavior, eliminating the trigger places, it's really about changing how we THINK about smoking. (That's why the Allen Carr book has such an impact on quitters.) You're still thinking about the act of smoking as being a friendly experience. A comfort. And there's no denying that smoking did provide us with a sense of comfort. It made us feel good. Smoking, after all, creates "feel good" things in our brains. Fact.
But you're here because, presumably, you understand that smoking eventually kills us. It's not good for us. And you want to live longer and have a better quality of life. That's the intellectual part of your brain speaking. And also part of your emotional brain. Because you've probably seen the effects of smoking on people you love. And then there's also that part of your brain that remembers the first time you started and how awful it was. And that's a fact too. Cigarettes are poison. Stop for only three days and then take a big inhale and it will make you dizzy and nauseous. That's the fact that we need to pay more attention to. Not the "oh how great it tastes" one. Because the latter is the lie and former the truth.
So - what's my point? Listen to your own self-speak. Listen to the words you are putting out to yourself (and to others). And if you can perceive any negativity - try to change it. We can't change anything until we first become aware of it. I tend to be a very negative person, but I'm learning to at least see that negativity, catch it, and transform it. Sometimes! We are all evoluting from our own primordial tar filled ooze.
Persevere.
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