I finally quit, goddammit

I'm here - still quit

2005-06-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

It's hard to post when I just don't think about it anymore. I don't count how many weeks its been, I haven't been doing the Big Rewards for significant chunks of time - I just don't even think about it.
I'm not sure if it's the hypnotism or the fact that I was just so ready to quit that I just quit.
I even had a party the other night and there were a bunch of people smoking in the driveway and it wasn't attractive or difficult or annoying or upsetting. There were just people smoking in my driveway and that's it.

It's as if I have been brainwashed, only I was brainwashed before and I'm not brainwashed now. Or something.

Needless to say I need some other ex-smokers to have access to posting on this blog, because I'm doing totally fine and others may want the chance to have this outlet. If you are interested - e-mail me.

2005-05-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

Styro's friend Craig died. First chemo treatment and he's dead.

I don't know what to tell her because it's sad and maddening and sad again.

I am terrified of becoming a statistic.

I don't smoke anymore.

Good Friends Really Help

2005-05-09T08:49:00.000-07:00

Manuel brought this over to our house Saturday. He seriously spent some time on this.

The box, labeled "Stuff to chew on", contained:

A box of pens with caps
A box of bendy straws
Big League Chew gum
Those weird wax lips
A pack of candy cigarettes
A round of chewing tobacco (?!??)
Ring pops
A 2 lb. bag of baby carrots
A box of Pocky
Beef jerky sticks
Candy necklaces
Asian ginger candy
A baggie of suckers
Gum cigars

Dudes. He drove all over going to Archie McPhees and convenience stores getting us this stuff.

It's moments like this that I know I have good friends. Thank you, Manuel.

Sleep

2005-05-04T14:31:00.000-07:00

I've been waking up between 4 and 5 a.m. every morning. I thought it was the Zyban, so I stopped taking it Friday. But today's Wednesday, and I woke up at 5 a.m. Now I'm not sure if it's the Zyban or the metabolism changes or a bad stroke of luck*.

I can tell you that I've gained five pounds, though.

I'm leaving work early today to run a couple errands then try to take a nap. I feel like I'm keyed up, even when I'm exhausted.

I need to find someone to go walking with after work.

* Coincidence? The cats' major pooping/kicking litter hour is between 4 and 5 a.m.** It never woke me up before. I find my self yelling "IT'S COVERED GODDAMMIT" every morning now.

** Who the fuck wakes up at 4 a.m. to shit?

P.S. Haven't smoked - feel good. Just a bit... um, rotund.

Great White North

2005-04-29T19:18:00.000-07:00

Three hour car ride stocked with five (FIVE) shots of decaf over ice with tons of cream and Splenda, and a chocolate Top Pot donut, and knitting, and SEWING. Yes, sewing in the car. And I usually get carsick. But today the Quit Smoking Gods looked down on me and let me repair* a skirt and a pair of khakis and then let me start a knitting project from scratch. Husband drove all the way.
Thankfully the family we are visiting with cook good food and booze up (which I don't) and play a wicked marathon of cards, but none of them smoke. Thought I'd check in with you guys since I didn't publicize our trip outta town for fear of the house getting broken into (again).
The weather is gorgeous - mostly sunny with a cool breeze. I hope it stays this way all weekend.
Will try to check in later this weekend too.
*Those stupid back pockets with the little flaps on them? That inevitably end up being bent up at the corners for an eternity? I always sew them shut.

Or was I already a bitch?

2005-04-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

last night when I got home from work I pulled into the driveway and saw a pink piece of paper taped to my house. Like, a piece of paper with that manila masking tape on the paper and another few inches out from the paper stuck to the wood of my house. I'm not sure how I would have handled this a few weeks ago, but OH MY GOD I WAS PISSED. I untaped this flyer from the house (it was taped right next to the metal screen door) and walked inside. I walked right in, picked up the phone, and started dialing the phone number of this carpet cleaning service that TAPED A FLYER TO MY HOUSE. Husband is saying "Hello? Honey? How was your day? Who the hell are you calling?!?" and I was ignoring him.

After a few rings I heard a cheery "Hi! This is Whatever It Was Carpet Cleaning! We do Blah blah blah! Please leave us a message!" and I said

YEAH. YOU JUST LEFT A FLYER? TAPED TO MY HOUSE? AND IF YOU EVER TAPE ANYTHING TO MY HOUSE AGAIN? I'M CALLING THE FUCKING POLICE TO HAVE YOU ARRESTED FOR HARASSMENT AND VANDALISM.

click.

Husband thought it was a bit much. Especially because of the f-bomb. And especially because they may have caller ID.

OH MY GOD THEY CALLED BACK.

Husband took the call. The business owner apologized and actually asked for our address so it would never happen again. Husband apologized for his wife's behavior. Husband informed me of this conversation.

What did I respond with?

YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD HIM NOT TO TAPE FLYERS ON PEOPLE'S FUCKING HOUSES. HOW BOUT ON THE DOOR OR EVEN ON THE GROUND IN FRONT OF THE DOOR LIKE MOST DUMB ASSHOLES.

I should have been breathing into a bag.

Am I the only person who gets seething mad at flyers? This is MY PROPERTY and you just deposited garbage on it. You just walked up to my door and dropped trash on the ground, or attached trash to my doorknob with a rubber band. You just threw a rolled up newspaper full of local ads into my front yard. I know it's not that big of a deal, but the amount of distributed flyers and "neighborhood newspapers" that have been distributed and thrown away in this world makes my head spin. And worse, people who USE the flyers and actually USE the business because of these flyers? I want to kill all of them.

Taped! To the varnished wood side of my house! Right next to the fucking screen door? IS IT ME???

Trudging along

2005-04-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was Administrative Professionals Day, motherfuckers. Yeah, yeah, talk to the hand. We'll see if I remember you when it's Whatever-the-Fuck-You-Do Day.
I'm finding myself oddly depressed each morning on the way to work. Perhaps because I'm getting 6 hours of sleep per night on Zyban? Or because every time I leave the house I think my old cat is going to die, like, THAT DAY? Because I LEFT THE HOUSE? But I also know it's because I'm driving to work and I can't smoke. It was something to look forward to (just like many of you look forward to your first cup of coffee - it's an event in your morning that you can be excited about). Seriously. It was entertainment on the 15-20 minute drive. And now the drive is slow and long and boring. And in the midst of this I suddenly plummet into this emotional train wreck of anger and sadness all at the same time without even directly recognizing that it's from the lack of smoking. As a matter of fact, it took me until THIS MORNING to recognize it for what it was - psychological withdrawal.

What's something I can replace this with? I thought a couple of new mixed CD's in my car would do it but.... it's not. And I can't eat or drink smoothies in the morning until I've been up at least a couple hours - for some reason. I've always been like that. I'm not a morning digester.

What else is there that I can do?

The testing continues....

2005-04-27T13:58:00.000-07:00

Fights with a partner are stupid because you KNOW this isn't the end of things but you drag it on as long as possible because you think you're right.
I think it would be much easier to throw vases at each other while screaming "fuck you!" then have make-up sex on the floor right there. See? Quick and efficient. But alas, we have to think things through.

THREE FUCKING TIMES I stepped in cat pee in THREE DIFFERENT PLACES before I left for work today. That's right - in the span of two hours I had to wash my feet in the sink three times after getting out of the shower. Siamese male cat. I screamed at him. "I COULD HAVE YOU PUT TO SLEEP!" and he did the angry "owwowwwowww."

I used my inhaler all the way to work today - and I haven't used it for about a week before this. And I'm still so nervous about this road trip we have coming up this weekend - hours in the car with no smoking. Maybe I can knit without getting car sick? Probably not.

Got a tiny book from Amazon last night called "Quit" - it's the size of a pack of cigarettes. I just started it but I already disagree with one thing - it says that the best way to quit is to cut down over the course of at least a couple weeks. I still think that our saving grace was the super-low nicotine cigarettes that we could smoke as much as we wanted. And in the course of smoking them we got annoyed with them and natually cut down, instead of that whole "keep a piece of paper and write down each cigarette and what mood you were in" bullshit. If I had to keep constant notes and charts and count cigarettes I don't think I would have felt as comfortable. I wanted it to feel like I WANTED to quit and not just HAD to quit.
Does that makes sense?

Well now here's a good test

2005-04-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

Fighting with the husband. Pass the water bottle....

THE LIST

2005-04-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

This is the list, motherfuckers:

1. Enrolled in the Group Health (my health insurance) stop smoking plan: Free & Clear. Counselors call me something really small like once a month or something to see how I'm doing. Plus they sent me a workbook and a little rubby rock and some 800# cards and stuff. Cute.

2. Enrollment in that program got me a prescription to Zyban. 150 mg twice a day. I think it's $15.

3. E-Z Quit mint inhaler. This fucker RULES. I woulda used this thing even when I wasn't trying to quit, like during the times I wanted to smoke but couldn't. It's just like those nicotine inhalers, but the cartridges have mint oil instead of nicotine. Can adjust looser or tighter for different levels of suckage pressure. I even haphazardly "ashed" this thing out my car window. Yeah I looked like an idiot, but I didn't care. Fabulous for the car. Something like $18 with tax and shipping.

4. HYPNOSIS. Not kidding. Three sessions for $100 because the hypnotist is a friend of mine. Did he knock me out? Not fully. Level of relaxment: a 7? How far I was put under: 2? Still worth it. Second time was even better. Third session tomorrow night.

5. $37 dollars worth of candy and gum. $37. Sugared, sugar-free, salted pumpkin seeds, gum, more gum, mints, lifesavers, etc. $37. For my husband and I.

6. A partner to quit with me - my husband. Not that he's jonesin' nearly as much as me. He was a social smoker. But still, he misses it, and he knows what I'm going through.

7. Books. Four of them so far. The best two? The No-Nag, No-Guilt, Do-It-Your-Own-Way Guide to Quitting Smoking and How Women can Finally Stop Smoking.

8. Pilates and Yoga DVD's. Crunch Yoga is kicking my ass, but in a good way.

9. Baking. It's a hobbie. Everyone at my work is getting cookie after cookie because Husband and I couldn't possibly eat all of them. Which leads us to...

10. Eating. Lots. Not just the $37 in gum and candy, either. It's ALL food.

11. Little bottles of water by the case. A bottle on me at all times. Including starting one right before bed and keeping it at my bedside. It's the unscrew-and-screw of the cap as well. It's hand-to-mouth. It's also trying to drink out all the shit from my body 500 ML at a time.

12. Going for walks. Which fits quite nicely with the new spring weather. It's a good way to shake out this weird new energy I have (either the speed in Zyban or the new energy from my body repairing?).

13. A reward plan. I have an adorable yellow taffeta skirt picked out at Banana Republic for my "one month" reward. I have absolutely nothing in my wardrobe that would match a yellow taffeta skirt. And I don't care.

As an aside, we changed brands a week before "the quit date". Now cigarettes. Have you heard of them? Fucking HORRIBLE. Inhale as hard as you can and hardly any smoke blows out. Gets to be that's it's exhausting and when you're done smoking you think "Well that was a waste of time." So then you end up only smoking maybe 5 cigarettes a day because you're using the inhaler, say, every time you wanna smoke in the car, and suddenly the nicotine levels in your body are plummeting.
We also didn't do nicotine replacement on the advice of my hypnotist. Why continue the drug in another form? Especially after switching to Now cigarettes - the patch would have been a nicotine overdose!

This is a lot of fucking work.

First post

2005-04-26T11:02:00.000-07:00

It's been over a week now, and so far so good. It better be good, since I'm using every single source on the fucking planet to kick this shit.
I told my Free & Clear counselor (see?) that I'm using so many boosters I should blog about it - maybe it can help others. Maybe eventually I'll let other quitters sign up as posters and this can just continue forever. Because, really, I don't want to be writing about this shit a year from now if I stay quit. But this blog could be an ongoing useful thing for new quitters.
So yeah. I quit smoking last last Friday. I came home, got hypnotized by my friend Bob, and after we exited the 2nd bedroom, Husband said "Are we quit?" and I said "Yup." and that was that. Packs of smokes still in the freezer. Ashtrays and lighters still sitting on the back patio. Still. And I don't care.
First major road trip is this Friday - having my friend hynotize me again Wednesday night for reinforcement. And I'm allowing my self to eat whatever I want, at least for the first couple weeks. Because really. 10 pounds vs. pink lungs? Easy.

Changes? Well, I talked all the way up the stairs last Friday. and I'm currently drinking a half-caff grande mocha and I won't be surprised if I vomit. It's giving me the fucking shakes. And keep in mind - should I remind you? - I worked at Charbucks and used to mainline this shit. I read that caffeine gets you super hyped up right after you quit smoking because the nicotine created such a constant stimulant that caffeine hardly affected you as a smoker, and when you quit, you finally feel caffeine's effects. And yup. I feel like I'm on coke. Only my gums just taste like mocha.
I've gained two pounds, there's some changes.
I wake up every morning between 4 and 5 am and can't fall back asleep now, but I think that's the Zyban. If this lasts one more week, the Zyban are going into the toilet. Which sucks because, hey! Free anti-depressants!

Anyway. If you know me, help me. This is hard. They aren't fucking kidding when they say it's like kicking heroin. Only heroin isn't a prop at parties, and heroin isn't a tool that can help you flirt, and heroin isn't as public and social, and heroin isn't romanticized and sexualized in movies.

I thought I was keyed-up because I was such a stimulant girl, but now I'm realizing that the stimulants and my personality just went hand-in-hand. And I'm giving up my crutch, my habit, my prop, my oral-fixation, my tool to focus, my excuse for a break.

Before you think I'm over dramatizing: I started smoking when I was TEN and was a regular smoker (always had cigarettes on me) by the time I was THIRTEEN.

And there's my intro.