Hello all!
I'M NEW! Just getting started on this journey, found this website about 2 days ago. I really love the lay out. Being that I'm a journaling kinda girl it really helps to beable to track, blog, etc about this serious decision - I just love it. The website alone makes me feel more confident that I can do this because it gives me "Something to do" when I want to go smoke.
I'm still in that "tracking" phase and have decided my quit date to be 11/15/12 - The Great American Smokeout. Which I'm really excited about. I'm not a "cold turkey" kind of person. I need a plan, as most of us are better off choosing to prepare for success.
2 weeks ago, I decided I was going to just space out my smoking. Basically, I wouldn't smoke till after 6pm. Then try to push it back and hour every day. Which was working out for me, but I was going "solo" and I felt like " I'm the only one that feels this way, I can't think, I can't focus, I can't carry on a conversation because I keep loosing my train of thought etc" and THAT realllyyyy drives me nuts. Or, drives me to smoke rather. Needless to say, that lasted a whole 4 days before I was back at it.
Never been a "blogger". So I hope this is some what interesting, it's more like an internet journal I suppose. I'm 24, been smoking since I was 13. So what I'm really trying to consider and bring to light is that ever since I had the feeling of being a "teenager" or a "young adult" smoking has been a part of my life. Basically ever since life wasn't an imaginary world and I realized I was not really a siberian tiger prowling through the jungle - also known as my neighborhood with a big, thick, fluffy coat. Smoking has been there. I've tried to quit several times, bad childhood lead to rebellious smoking. I'd puff them down back to back to back... Now I'm deffinately less of a junky - until I start thinking about the brain fog I get when I try to quit. Then I'm an anxiety junky feigning for a cig.
I'm really confident in my quit this time. REALLY confident. I know I can do this. We all have our reasons to do it, and It's great to be a part of a program that allows me to re-learn life without cigarettes. Or learn life period without them. I do have some triggers that I don't see on the "tracker". And I'm not sure how to address them as they are my STRONGEST and worst triggers. Maybe you can give me some ideas and insight, they are listed below.
The:" I'm about to go in to work and don't know when I can smoke if I don't do it NOW" Cigarette.
- This one gets me all out of wack. If I don't smoke before I go in to work I'm a nervous wreck and all I can think about while I'm at work is when I can go smoke. It really screws me up! Any ideas?
The: "Reward" cigarette.
When I'm at work, and I've gotten through about 3-4 hours of solid customers and I finally get a break. My first opportunity I go out for a smoke. Which is likely to be immediately after the last person walks out of my store and I see the opportunity. Without taking this break to go "reward" myself for working so hard for 3-4 hours with back to back customers, I get REALLY irritable with my next slew of people.
Wow. I'm writting a novel. Thanks for hanging with me and reading this much if your still reading! Please let me know if you have any phsychological tricks or suggestions on how to get through these periods.
Thank you!
