I wanted to come on and give you a little blog update. I was on here quite regularly before and immediately following my quit but in the days and months since I have not been around so often. Since my quite date I have been: laid off my job, gained about 30 pounds, gone through seasonal depression along with a still looming depression that I attribute at least in part to my quitting smoking, long time friends (who haven't spoken to me in months) got married, well....a lot. A lot has happened since my quit day.
And I have not picked up a cigarette to cure my problems, sometimes Ido have cravings for them still, and I am concious enough about my cravings to know that somehow the "happiness" and "good feelings" parts of my brain are still connected to the "nicotine makes me feel good" parts of my brain, at least those receptors of nicotine that are still alive, and that it is ridiculous to believe an addicted receptor in my brain. So, I have not smoked.
With the help of the people on this site, and by reading some info on www.whyquit.com i have taught myself some lines to give myself when I do have nicotine cravings, "Non-smokers have stress in their lives too, and they don't smoke to make it better, so why would I let my brain convince me that smoking makes stress go away" , and I have taught myself that if I consume nicotine I will revert to day 1 of my quit, and you can read in my previous blogs that day 1 was difficult. I couldn't think clearly, I couldn't speak clearly, etc., and it is frightening to me to think about how badly nicotine was messing up my functions, and to think I consumed nicotine for years.....scary.
This online community was essential to my success as a ex-smoker, I don't really have the family and community quit support that it would have taken, but I do have to thank the jack-a$$ at work who YELLED at me on day 1 of my (fourteenth) attempt to quit smoking. As I waived the smoke from a co-workers cigarette away from my face, he scoffed and said "what? You trying to quit smokin' again???", and before I could say anything he said "Lemme, tell you something, you can't TRY to quit smoking, if you are EVER going to quit smoking you will just QUIT, none of the TRY Bullsh^t". Hence some of the origin to get mad enough at myself, mad enough at myself that I stopped TRYING to quit smoking and quit......the same guy a couple months later, gave me hell for being an ex-smoker......
But, I have to give credit where credit is due. He pissed me off, and I was pissed off enough to get mad enough at myself to be fed up with trying to quit smoking and finally succeeded in quitting. And the experience of the first day without nicotine....
I am very solid in my quit, and with all the lifecrap that has happened since, I am very confident in myself staying quit. I have no desire to ever need to go through day one again, and that guy ticked me off so bad, so long as there is any chance in hell I might ever see him around again I will never chance the possibility of him seeing me smoke, so no smoking.
So, that's what's been going on.. Tomorrow is eight months an ex-smoker.
