After quitting cold turkey and surviving exactly 38 days without cigarettes and actually feeling good about myself and my ability to will my way through, I SMOKED! Can't believe I just wrote that, can'tt believe it happened. And moreover, that it kept happening after the fact. Here is a warning from my experience to those getting started, RESPECT THE POWER OF ONE! One cigarette leads to a life of readdiction. I can't have one, because number two is closel behind with more breathing problems.
We discuss triggers quite a bit here, but I think the biggest trigger is the nicotine itself. ONe cigarette. We make it past the physical craving for cigarettes and we are about home free. I am getting restarted NOW, as I write this I have recommitted myself to the pursuit of my breathing and a clean, odorless smell in my house. I have recommitted to feeling good about my accomplishment, my ability to end a bad relationship.
I have such a huge appreciation for those of you with 600 or 700 or even 10 daqys or 3 days under your belts, I appreciate the sacrifice and personal discovery that is required to decide to go this route. I think so many people don't quit because we inadvertantly underestimate the destructive effects of the cigarettes. I think this happens because there are so many immediate threats in our world today that we assume one of those will get us before the gradual but certain death that cigarettes delivers. I thinkfor me, that I get so consumed in my days, that I allowed myself to forget the importance of a healthy mind and body. I negotiate for a startup private equity firm, hustle and bustle from 6:00 am until well after the sun goes down, then family time (cooking, and homework with the wife and daughter, movies etc), Asia at 2:30 am and finally sleep...........for 2 hours if I am lucky. Cigarettes right there throughout. Never leaving my side. Signaling like a woireless device synced to my brain the exact schedule and dosage of each nicotine requirement.
I like to think of it like a summer fling breaking up. We went hot and heavy everyday for a little while as if we would not have to go our seperate ways. BUt the summer ended and sure enough the good byes came. We bumped into each other and it was like we were never apart. Me, fully aware that you were the worst thing for me. And you, uncaring and determined to get your way. Manipulating my body to make believe that I needed you, manipulating my mind so that I can not concentrate when you're not close by. The cravings when you're away. Every molecule of my body wanting you, if for just a second in the stall of a bathroom during a meeting, or in the cramped stewardess closet on a 13 hour flight. I forgetall mores when it came to an encounter with you. But as quickly as it began, I was reminded why it had ended in the first place. I had briefly forgotten how nasty and disrespectful our relationship had become. I had forgotten how my wife would sneer at me when I came in from work and she smelled our encounter soaked into my clothes. I had to stop, let it go and get on. ................
