39 days...wow, what a difference

[freedomfromthis]

It has been a while since I have posted here. I have been buried with school. I am doing well, and still very thankful to have this site and the people here who have been so supportive. I think about it often, and even when I am not here, it helps so much.

  It's been 39 days since my quit and I feel so totally different. It is so amazing to me how much smoking had been altering my life...my thoughts, my mood, my feelings. Everything in my entire life was about smoking...not just revolved around wanting to smoke, but my entire being was consumed with needing more nicotine. I had no idea, so the Carr book made such a huge difference. I am not afraid of it anymore at all. I still get tension and cravings, and sometimes they are powerful, but NOPE really, really helps...as does this group. They are the things that counter those powerful cravings, along with just being very, very aware that smoking again is not the thing that is going to stop it. The only thing that is going to stop it is to not smoke...or have any nicotine in my body...and, they go away. Smoking at least two packs of ciggs a day for almost 30 years has had it's chance to bring me some relief and it didn't. Stopping did. 

For me, the key for this whole smoking issue has really been about relaxing. I can't believe how tense smoking has made me. I always thought it was something else, but now I find that it was always the smoking and the need to smoke more, but there was no amount of more that was ever going to fix it...there was no amount of ciggs that were going to take the tension away. And, since I have stopped, I now have less tension than I did before, but it comes in waves. Nonetheless, at this point, it is almost gone...which is the last thing I expected. I had it all backwards...I thought the smoking was helping with tension and now I understand that it was the cause. So, the intensity in my life has decreased remarkably since I quit. 

  As far as the weight gain, I am frustrated, because I do have the hand to mouth thing and I am really having to work at it. It's actually not really any or much different than it was before. I have been struggling with wanting to lose a little weight for a long time, and felt that I had a problem with to much sugar craving. Now I understand I was not craving sugar, I was craving nicotine. So, as those cravings are going away, I have been astonished to find that the "sugar" cravings are going away too. The same thing with the hand to mouth issue. As it gets better, the more I feel like I can control my weight, because I am stopping the hand to mouth exercise. I don't need to keep doing that for the rest of my life. I do not want anything controlling me, nor do I want to live in fear that I must do this thing where I move my hand to my mouth all the time. I was not born needing to do that, so why do it now...It's all part of the brainwashing, and I so wish I would have been stronger and not allowed myself to be so brainwashed. But, I just keep telling myself...You can't know what you don't know. What I realize now, is that I have had all of these problems for many, many years, because there was no amount of nicotine or smoking that would fix it. I had reached a level of smoking where I could have smoked 5 at a time and eaten a few as the same time, and I was still going to feel like I needed to do the hand to mouth thing and have my "sugar" 24 hours a day...it was a craving that never ended...it was a nicotine craving and there wasn't even an amount of nicotine that was going to stop the craving. Nicotine had stopped working on itself, which is the really scary thing, because then came all the other things to try and fix that issue, which couldn't work, but my addiction had expanded...and, the need was constant.  

 So, now they are ending...all the cravings are ending. It's still there though and I am frustrated about that, because I did expect that they would be gone by now. It's been just over 5 weeks since my quit. However, I stayed on the gum until May 3rd, and actually didn't start really feeling relief until just this week, so about three weeks no nicotine, and suddenly there was this release. My body is changing. My stomach issues are getting better, I do not taste nicotine in my mouth as much, I am not so fatigued, I have much more time, I am way more relaxed. It's hard to describe, but everything is just better...There is so much less tension. It feels as if something just let go of me. It's not all the way gone, but there was a pretty big shift about three days ago, and I feel much better. I am still struggling with tension and the hand to mouth thing...But, I am trying not to induldge that too much through other methods, because I want it to stop, not change...if that makes any sense. 

  I am out of school for summer in a couple of weeks and I think that is going to help a lot. At that point I can get more focused on my Yoga and I am hoping that will make things easier, helping me to relax even more, as well as have even more control over my self and my life, and stopping smoking has given me control back and that is a great feeling. 

  I hope everyone is doing well with their quits. I am thinking about you always. Take good care, and have a wonderful Memorial Day week-end, Em 🙂