Quitting Smoking

Yep you read the title right. I'm quitting smoking.

Today is day 1.

I've been thinking about what a lot of people who have quit have told me. In doing so I have decided a good way to help with the physical addiction would be to blog about it.

So as the day goes on I'll edit the blog for the day and explain how i'm feeling, what i'm doing to keep from lighting up and things like that.

Everyone is free to post feedback and ideas if they like.

Be warned though. If you want to flame me, remember, I don't take crap from anybody, with the mood swings I'm going to be going through messing with me is the last thing you'll want to do.

Alright so on with what this is about

(1am) Waking up was not fun. Normally when i get up the very first thing I do is go to my desk and light up. Well I got to my desk but there were no smokes there. Without thinking about it I almost went next door to get some. As I was getting dressed I realized what I was doing and forced myself to not go.

(2:30)It took a while to get over the actual craving, but my hands were going crazy. Cleaning up some worthless files on my comp helped some. At the same time it made it worse because I do 90% of my smoking while at my computer.

(3:00)The next time I wanted a smoke was out of annoyance. I'm not going to say too much about it, but i can't stand liars. To clear this one up I went to the store and did my shopping for the day. It was different for me because on the walk over there I always have a smoke. I didn't know what to do with my hands so I just shoved them in my pockets.

(4:00ish) Went to the gas station to get something to drink. The walk there helped keep my mind off of smoking. It was horribly humid so I was really glad I wasn't smoking on top of that. While the whole going to the gas station isn't important in itself what happened there was really cool.

I was talking to the lady working about how horrible it was outside, she said something about how shes not even going out to have smokes because its so humid. I told her how today was my first day quitting. So we got talking about all the various things related to smoking. Well anyways, she wants me to stop in every morning to keep her updated on how I'm holding up! Its awesome at least in my eyes the amount of support i'm getting from people, even the ones I haven't said more then "hi", "have a nice day" "see you tomorrow" to.

In the few hours since I've gotten home I've been dealing with a lot of cravings. Its all I can do to keep my hands busy and not think about it too much. Cleaning is helping. Writing this blog is helping a lot. Even though I may be thinking about it, I'm also keeping myself busy enough to not do it.

Well anyways I don't have anymore to say right now. I'll come back to this in a few hours and update it.

(10:30) Alright its been about 3 hours.
Had my first meal without a smoke after it. To be honest I felt lost without the after food death stick. I knew this was going to be a tough test. The after meal smoke has been a staple in my life for every meal over the past 10 years. I couldn't think of anything to do that would particularly help, so I just sucked it up and dealt with it.

I'm finding the more I move around the less I think about wanting to smoke. I ran to wal-mart and after the habit of wanting one just because i'm walking went away, I didn't think about it again until i was 1/2 way home, when it was another "i want one because i'm walking" deals.

Sitting here and having to watch over people probably isn't the best idea. I'm doing a rather good job at holding back when people do something annoying. But I can only do it so long. I've warned people that I'm going to have zero tolerance over the next few days, and others have been warning people too, but yet people have to test me.

I hope the person who wanted to play with me earlier enjoyed the 15 hour gag...

I'll tell ya what it did feel good to do that, even tho i know that was kinda harsh. Hopefully no one else gives me a reason to lash out.

/me pounds his head into his desk

Why can't people just $&*#(*% listen?!?!?!
Its really starting to look like its going to be people that can't follow directions that cause me to break down. At least the problem is taken care of now and I shouldn't (crosses fingers) ever have to deal with them again.

Gotta keep busy with something every time i start doing nothing my hands start looking for the non existent pack....

(12:45) Alright so its been about 12 hours since I woke up, and somewhere around 20 hours since my last smoke.

So far this day has been slightly easier then i expected it to be. Yes i'm still having cravings, and I don't know what to do with my hands. Not to mention that things that should just be a slight annoyance are irritating to no end.

I think that because I'm really serious about it, its not as hard. Every time before this I've only been 1/2 ass committed to quitting. But being serious about it make me think about everything I can do to keep myself too busy to mindlessly walk to the store and get cancer tubes. I'm starting to run out of things that are low stress. So even though up to this point has been easy(ish) I may end up with a really hard fight later tonight.

(3:15) Past few hours haven't been too bad. What I have noticed are small things that trigger me to reach for a smoke, even tho there are none there. First one I noticed was that every time I checked my e-mail. This wasn't hugely noticeable because my hand drifted over to what was the spot. I didn't realize I was reaching until after the thought of "hmm where are my smokes at". The second one was when asked to help with someones computer problem. I was just kinda sitting back doing nothing when asked. I jumped up and dove for the smokes. I know helping people with their comp problems always caused me a lot of stress, but I didn't realize until just now how dependent I was on having that smoke even before it got stressful.