I quit smoking on June 15, 2010. I do not use any medications or tobacco-replacement type stuff. Just me, quitting. Today is day 15. I am so embarrassed to admit it, but I had one today. I bought a 10 pack, smoked 1 and placed the rest outside next to the ashtray at a pub across the street. Other than the complete waste of cash, it was like magic. Like forbidden love. Like Catholic sin.
What I assume was the worst of the physical withdrawals is over. I happen to be very lucky. I live in Louisiana, but right now I'm spending a good portion of the summer in England with my best friend, her husband, and their new baby, so I have had a chance to relax in a way I couldn't have at home. Also, since neither of them smokes cigarettes, I've had a rare opportunity to quit without having to be around smokers. Another plus is that since I don't drive here in the U.K., my favorite smoking trigger has been off limits to me. I don't know how I will handle going home and getting behind the wheel again, nor do I know how I shall deal with the fact that practically everyone I'm close to back home smokes like a freight train.
Aside from finding things to type or gaming I don't know what to do with my hands most of the time, especially in public when PC's and consoles aren't an option. My best friend suggests cross-stitching. She's good at all that crafty stuff, and I can be, but it isn't really my thing. The idea of cross-stitching didn't appeal to me at all until she pointed out that once I got good enough I could make my own designs. Cross-stitching doesn't seem that odd a thing to sitting under a tree in the park or even in a pub, but I can't help worrying it might prove an awkward replacement for the post-coital cigarette as I wouldn't want to remind my lover of his grandmother. I always thought those people who only smoked cigarettes after sex were so sexy. I doubt I have the self-control, though, to be such a person.
Still, it hasn't been quite as awful as I expected before quitting. I am not here to be judged or to try and push my lifestyle on anyone, but in good conscience I feel I have to share this: pot helps. Since I quit I've been doing 20-50 of those fat-people-push-ups (where you stand up and place your hands flat on the counter) every day, and I have to say the exercise and the newly heightened O2 levels have given me a fantastic energy increase. I want to start taking walks, but I'm a little scared that I will see half a million people making cigarettes look delicious in the process that I'll end up stopping off at a store. Gum has proven a powerful ally, as well, but I've never been a huge fan of the stuff, so I don't use it as religiously as some. I I try to drink a ton of water, and it's great but it doesn't seem to help me not want a cigarette.
I don't think my little misadventure earlier cost me the whole deal... I didn't even keep the pack.
It's going to be fine, and soon I won't think about cigarettes 80% of the day...
Right?
