Well, folks, I have just finished my fourth month and have started my fifth. I'm now one cool customer. Very little gets me upset and when I do get upset, I don't think about smoking. That's very good news for all of you in your first and second months who are struggling with depression, tears, and anger. Go back a couple of months and check out my posts. I thought for sure that the sky was going to cave in on my head and that the end of the world was just around the corner. Guess what? It's not! I'm so much less anxious now than I was before. In the beginning, I had read on some websites that if you struggled with anxiety and depression, quitting smoking could actually make it worse. Well, it does - but temporarily!
So, when do I want a cigarette now? When I want to celebrate. Yes! I want to smoke when I want to celebrate not smoking. Strange, huh? I just want one smoke. But, I know that there's no such thing as one smoke. One puff equals what could potentially be hundreds of cartons. As it stands, in the four months that I've quit, I've already not smoked FIFTEEN cartoons. Imagine that, over 3,000 cigarettes. If you were to dump 3,000 cigarettes out at my feet, the pile would come to the middle of my shins (and I'm a pretty tall girl!). I want ONE cigarette, but if that one cigarette means that I may have to smoke 3,000 (or more) cigarettes to make up for the addiction I just kick-started again, then I want no cigarettes.
My current battle since I stopped smoking is that I'm allergic to everything. The nicotine and the chemicals in cigarettes cover our mast cells and we may find that once our mast cells are able to function, they over-produce and make us allergic to more than we care to be allergic to. I'll have to see an allergist and an immunologist soon.
Oh= a bonus to not smoking - I can work - like a horse. I go all day long without needing a break because. The smokers who work with me are dragging at half-a-day - figuratively and figuratively!
Don't give up new quitters. You'll get to write this same kind of post very soon.