I made it one week!!! Mostly....
Yup, big uh-oh.
Here's what happened.
Not smoking wasn't bothering me in the least. I was enjoying my coffee, and cutting down remarkably on how much coffee I drank throughout the day! I was enjoying my clean car, my clean clothes, my clean teeth, and room and house. I geniunely enjoyed everything smelling and being cleaner. The "fog" of quitting smoking was lifting, I didn't feel like sleeping all the time. I wasn't replacing cigerettes with anything anymore (like gum, lollipops, etc) I was becoing more active and alive again. Life was good and I was feeling good. I saw benefits everywhere I looked, and the thought of smoking actually disgusted me.
Things have been rough between my husband and I lately, and our crazy household full of mixed children/adults. I knew this the day I looked at my pack of cigerettes and thought, I don't even want to smoke anymore, and decided when that pack was gone I was done. But we all know that there's truly no "right" time to quit smoking. If you look for it there is always an excuse to put it off.
The last few days things have been really bad at home. My husband and I have been arguing almost non stop. Well, we do stop, when we're hardly saying a word to each other because the kids are around. Twice we got into it really, really bad and we both said mean things, but his words hurt so badly. I felt so insecure, belittled, meaningless, hurt, like a failure. I didn't know how to feel, what to think, what to do. I didn't even want to smoke, I knew it was bad for me, I knew it would do nothing for me, and I knew it would only make me feel worse, and I lit a cigerette, smoked it, and with the raging headache and upset stomach it caused went outside and cleaned my car in a fury because it was a step before packing my bags and moving out.
I got the odd twinge of wanting a cigerette, but due to cleaning the car and my toddler following me outside I couldn't just leave her outside to go roll another one. After awhile my husband came out and helped me finish up the car and suggested we go to the lake and cool off. The hunger for a cigerette was still holding on for dear life but I knew better by then and rode it out. I didn't even enjoy the lake because I was constantly waiting for something to happen, waiting to go home, waiting for the cigerette I didn't even want.
By the next morning the cravings had completely cleared and I was SO SO SO proud of myself for not letting that one cigerette turn into a full blown failure. I knew for a fact I did not want to return to the smokers life.
The next day things got really bad again. Again, my husband said words that made me feel so badly, indescribely unimportant. (keep in mind i'm no angel either) I dropped him off at work, came home and smoked a cigerette, a while later a half a cigerette, only because I couldnt get the darn roller to roll a full one. I got sick to my stomach. My head hurt. It tasted awful. It was doing NOTHING for me. And I knew it. I acknowledged all of it.
I picked up my husband from work, went about our evening. Finally, after hours of "busying" myself I went in and asked him if he was just not going to talk to me or what. He said something to the effect of nope, i'm just sick of you. And that's where it went. I walked away, got a bath, and a good hour or two later rolled up a cigerette because I was just done quitting.
I smoked 5 cigerettes before the night was over. Almost forcing each one. All the while knowing perfectly well that I didn't want to smoke. I stubbed the last one out before bed and thought to myself that this is ridiculous. I went to bed, with an immense headache from smoking, knowing that I truly did not want to smoke and that I needed to get back on track. I awoke this morning fine. Poored some coffee, and after a good ten minutes went and made a cigerette, noticing that it wasn't ever a cigerette that I had enjoyed with my coffee. I enjoyed my coffee a ton when I wasn't smoking.... I NEEDED my coffee in order to enjoy that cigerette. Otherwise I sat, coughing, needing to have a drink to soothe my throat. I packed my husbands lunch, drove him to work, came all the way home, began cleaning and smoked another one.
WHAT AM I DOING?! So I sat, stubbornly rolling with humid tobacco in a crappy roller and finally got three cigerettes rolled. I told myself, "self, when these three are gone, you are done." The second to last I only smoked half and threw it out the window. The last one I smoked about a third of.
I have a feeling I'm going to have to go back through the mess of fighting off cravings now. Which really sucks. But I know I don't want to be a smoker. Don't want to be stinky and have ashes everywhere and be dependent. I figure it's easier picking back up now then letting myself go full blown back into smoking and then trying again.
But..... why? Am I absolutely crazy? Who smokes when they have absolutely NO desire to smoke, knows it's not what they want, and are just so miserable that they actually want to mess up what they had going? And I get it, I need something else to do when I get so miserable, so overwhelmed, so lost. Talk to someone. Cry. Scream. So many other choices I had, but I didn't chose to do them, why not? Why can't I reach out before it's too late for help?
And yes, after no more than 10 cigerettes, I am DONE! But how do I keep my quit?! Why, when I want it so bad and don't find anything desirable from smoking is this even an issue at all?
P.S. My nicotine patches seem to be about useless.... thinking of making a go at it without them? Save the hassle of them always falling off. Opinions? Advice? Anyone been in these shoes?
