caledongirl

Day Six, people, and I’m hanging tough. I can’t believe that I’ll have a week tomorrow evening. My boyfriend is a big help; I was at a party last night and all of my friends were smoking. I believe I may have struck out if he hadn’t been standing there. But I knew when I decided to quit (again) that I had to do this for me, and not because he wanted me to. Also, he can’t watch me all the time. Something cool I picked up today came as a tip from a friend of mine who quit over a year ago. He works in customer service like me and, like me, used cigarette breaks as a brief chance to de-stress from helping people all day. Now he regularly leaves his counter and goes outside for a walk around the block. I tried it today (I had someone to cover the desk, natch) and it was wonderful! A little exercise to get the blood flowing, deep breaths in of fresh air and, best of all, the smells! Yes, when you quit smoking, you smell things! Amazing! Cologne, car exhaust, food frying, early spring flowers! It’s amazing, like being high! I have to remember how worth it it is. I also switched to liquorice-flavored cough drops instead of liquorice ropes. Less calories, they last longer and the calming benefits are more concentrated. By the time one dissolves the craving is over. I’m also slowly replacing my coffee with mint tea, which is enervating but doesn’t make me crave. The next phase?
1) Buy something nice with the $35 I saved this week by not smoking.
2) Get off my butt and onto my bike.

Good luck all!

A more positive way to calm down. I quit smoking pot and drinking, now I’m quitting smoking. I need a way to turn off that doesn’t involve harmful substances.

Yesterday was really tough. For some reasons the cravings were more intense than at first. I’m not sure if maybe I’m adjusting to the level of nicotine I’m getting from the patch (I popped some gum too but it only helped a little) or if it’s a psychological thing. I know that I need to cut back on the coffee if I want to make a real dent in my urges to smoke. Unfortunately, I’m totally addicted to that too and there’s no caffeine patch. I think the main problem is that I’m losing the positive mentality I had at first and maybe falling into that ‘If I could go this long without smoking I could totally smoke just one and not go back to a pack a day.’ I need to snap out of it! Any advice, amigos?