Quitting Smoking: 3 Weeks

It has been 3 weeks since I’ve smoked. Hold your applause. I started on the 2nd of this month. When I first started the cravings were there. I had the biggest problem when  I would drive to work. It’s not the place where I did the most smoking but it was the routine of my habit that was going to be the hardest to over come. I bought myself some gum and some mints. I would chew the gum or suck on the mint to occupy myself when I went to work. The mints are gone and the gum is about out. I don’t need them anymore. I still suck on a mint or chew the gum just to do it. It’s a new habit but at least a healthier and less costly one.

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One Week Down

I have been smoke free for a full week. How awesome is that!? I will admit that there were a few times that I would have loved to taste a cigarette one more time. But I didn’t. I am keeping myself strong and not giving in to my temptations. My car is stocked full of gum and mints. When I drive, I need something. Not always but I still like to keep myself busy, well keep my hands busy still. With no patches, no real support group, and no gum. I am doing this all cold turkey. So far, so good.

They say when you stop smoking, you’ll eat more. I don’t think I have had a bigger appetite. I still eat the same amount of food. I’ve drank a few nights so far and amazingly, no cravings. The only thing that does bother me is I am chewing on the inside of my mouth all the time. I guess it’s that or smoking again. I did this before a few years ago. That lasted 6 months. This time, I want to last infinity. Right now, the cravings are really going away. They say three day hump and after that it gets easier. I think it has. I think that if I can keep my mind set on not smoking and find another solution of stress, I can kick this habit once and for all. 

 

I hope there are other people out here right now doing the same thing. I hope other people realize that smoking is a pretty nasty habit. I am not going to push you to stop. If you smoke and people want you to quit, I say only quit when you feel ready. Don’t let others push you into quitting. No one told me to quit. I just did it all on my own.

It has been a week. 7 days of not smoking. 7 days of some eff’ed up dreams, 7 days of healing my lungs and breathing better. Eventually, I will try and be active and start running. If I run, I am totally going 5k. When I hit a month, I’ll get back to you and let you know if I am still smoke free or if I went back.

Quitting Smoking

Have you heard about the nun that was told to quit smoking or leave the convent? She can’t decide which habit to kick.

It may be too early to tell but I am going to work on one of my bucket list items. I am going to try and finally call it quits on smoking. I have smoked for about 12 years. It doesn’t matter how long you or I have smoked. Smoking is addictive. I’ve quit before or as an old manager of mine put it,

Took a break.

He’s right. I took a break for 6 months before a large account for work landed in our laps and I was reaching again for a smoke to relax me during those hectic days. I shouldn’t have went back to it. I should have stayed strong and went with being a non-smoker again. Here I am. It’s about 2 years later and I still smoke. I am not a chain smoker. I don’t smoke packs a day. I can smoke up to 10 a day. It really depends on what I am doing. If I am drinking, then yes, I will probably smoke more than I should. If I am working all day, I will smoke less. It all depends on what I am doing and where I am. 

Courtesy of http://www.holgerappel.com/

I put this on my list on said I will quit. I said I will smoke that last cigarette and hopefully get to being active and doing more than just playing video games or when drinking sends me to the hospital. It was Monday. I had a few cigarettes left in my pack. I had more but the Chain Smoking Cryptkeeper came by and asked to buy a few. I had three left at one point. I thought of running to the store and getting another pack and then making that pack the last one. I didn’t go. If I did go, I would have to keep buying myself “that last pack”. 

I took a nice hot shower and planned on making a nice meal for myself. I open my pack and see that all I have left is one. 

Just one cigarette left. I made sure I got everything out of that final smoke. I puffed and puffed till there was nothing left to smoke. Inside, I ate my dinner and headed to bed shortly after. I wasn’t having much of a craving that night but the next morning, the cravings were there. Driving to work will be an issue. I smoke when I drive to work and have certain spots that I light up. I know it’s bad but when I drive to and from work, I am a chain smoker. That’s the only time I smoke more than I should. I will have one when I leave home and when I reach a certain spot (same spot each time) going to work, I light up another one. The same goes with when I head home. I light up when I leave work and when I reach a certain spot (different spot on way home) on that drive, I light up again. You can see why driving is going to be hard. To keep my mouth busy, I chewed on a pen as I drove. It was something. I didn’t have gum or candy. I grabbed a pen and just chewed away to keep my mouth busy during my first and final (hopefully) smokeless drive.

It has only been a day and a half since I quit smoking. Today has been a little iffy on the smoking. Right now, as I write this post, I am craving a smoke. I really want to get a quick puff just to get that quick sense of relaxation. If I do that, my goal will be void. I can’t go about with having just one here and there. It’s one or none. No more smoking. I had a few drinks last night and was proud that I had no craving. I have it today. Candy works. I bought some candy the other day and that craving I am having is getting an, ‘mfs’ from me. 

I purchased an app from the Apple App Store. It’s a quit smoking app. I’ll possibly do a review of it later. You can purchase it for $6.99. (Quit Smoking Now with Max Kirsten) I am going to keep you all updated from time to time about my status on smoking. I will let you know if I am staying strong. I’ll let you know if I snuck a smoke in or not. I will follow up with a week, a month, six months, and etc…

What about you. Are you quitting? Did you quit? What tricks did you use to quit? Gum? Use the patch? Me, I am going cold turkey. I am calling it quits and hopefully I can start exercising some. I will be able to use the bike I bought that never gets used. I bought it to get healthier but shortly after that, things went to shit. That’s when I quit smoking. That’s when I wanted to be healthy. But trying that, led to me getting attacks. I am going for a second round. This time I will win. I will soon be an ex-smoker.

 

 

 

The Cryptkeeper Is To Blame

I have been puzzled with something for a while now. I don’t smoke inside cause it just stinks up the place. FYI…smoking is on my list of things to quit. We’ll see how well that goes. Quitting would benefit me but for the culprit behind the ongoing theft will be pretty angry. Since I smoke outside, I keep a tiny ashtray on my porch. It’s really a flower pot but beggers can’t be choosers. Whatever. It works. I would smoke and throw the butt into the pot. I began to notice something off. I would have a few butts in the pot. It could be the next morning or it could be hours later. The butts in the pot were beginning to disappear. Honestly. That’s eff’ed up. Where the hell were they going? Was it maybe a bird swooping in and claiming my old butts as his? Was he using them to build a nest for his baby birds? It’s possible. Maybe it’s the family of cats that live under the stairs. They are growing in numbers and sooner or later, we’ll be taken over by the feline infestation.

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Coffee.

When I was little, I was dragged to church. I never liked church at all. There were only two upsides to church. I got to get an extra hour of sleep in those really comfortable wooden pews. On Sunday’s after mass, they had coffee and donuts. Why it was the highlight of Sunday mass…I don’t know. The donuts weren’t anything spectacular. They had only two kinds. They offered glazed and those plain cake donuts. Does anyone actually eat plain cake donuts? Those are disgusting. But it was free and it was sugar. You’re like 12 or 13…free donuts is a gift from God. Since I was a kid, I didn’t drink coffee. I don’t know how many kids do. I am sure more do now. Seems like kids are growing up faster than ever. But anyway, instead of coffee, the church people offered “juice” for kids. I don’t know who decided to call this stuff juice. I don’t even want to know the person who decided that, “Wow! This stuff taste great! Let’s make gallons of this stuff and ship it off to school and churches!” It’s not even juice. I can’t explain what it is. You assume it’s orange juice. I mean the bulletin says, “coffee, donuts and juice.” Juice should have pulp in it. Not powder floating on top. So we figured it wasn’t juice and it wasn’t slice. I loved Slice! It was the coolest thing. It was Sunkist, but I liked Slice. Cause saying Slice was much more fun.

So it wasn’t either of those two. What is the church trying to pass off as juice? It was the nastiest stuff ever. I can still taste it to this day. So I finally decided I am fed up with this juice scam. I figured I want to be an adult, so I went for coffee. You get this little Styrofoam cup. It was like one sip and that was to satisfy your thirst. Plus those cups were the cheapest cups ever. Every sip you take from those cups, you somehow chew off a section of it. By the time you’re done with your coffee, you got a cup the size of a Petri dish. Where is the money we put in those baskets going? Obviously it’s not going to the real juice and better cup fund. So I get my coffee. I take a sip. Wow…this stuff is hot. But I feel older already. I can’t feel my tongue but I could feel the chest hair already coming in. I look around. Why are those people putting that stuff in their coffee? Should I do that? But that looks like a lot of work. Plus, they aren’t all putting in the same amount. That’s too confusing. I will just stick with it like this.

The above passage is from something I wrote about a year ago. This is about my love for coffee. I really don’t care where the coffee is from. Coffee is coffee to me. I’ll get it anywhere. But I will not put in cream or sugar. I don’t know what it taste like with it. I never will. I honestly don’t know how much to put in. I am sure people put in the amount they like. I rather not waste a cup of coffee trying to figure out how much I should add before it taste good.

I like cappuccino. That’s good. I stick with french vanilla. I’ve tried others. It’s more of a ritual. I’ll visit Quiktrip in the morning sometimes. I’ll go there if I am not in the mood for Bob Evans. So when I go to QT, I’ll get the same thing. Every time. A large cup of french vanilla cappuccino and two donuts. A chocolate long john and a maple long john. That’s my quiktrip meal. I can say, I don’t drink their coffee. It’s not that I don’t like it. I haven’t ever had it. I don’t know why I don’t. I am sure it’s fine. I just can’t break my ritual.

I think there is only three of us in my family that drink coffee. Maybe four. I think one only likes it if it’s made as a cappuchino. My mother lost the taste of coffee about 30 years ago. I don’t know if I’ll ever lose the taste for it. I love it too much. I can tell ya, drinking coffee and not smoking at the same time, it’s effin’ hard. I do miss smoking.

When I was little, I drank hot chocolate all the time. It didn’t matter if it was the middle of a heat wave. i still drank it. Now, I do it with coffee. Any weather, any time. My only stipulation to coffee is I cannot drink bold coffee. It hurts my heart. I can drink cups and cups of coffee and feel fine. But give me bold coffee and I’ll be dying.

I do want to say I am sorry for not posting for sometime. My internet was down. I am working, what feels like all day, and when I get home, I just can’t think. I still can’t. For being a picky eater, I am lacking on ideas. If I remember tomorrow, I’ll post something about what I plan on talking about soon. You know, give you something to look forward too. Thanks for reading,

Kirk