Failure to Quit
posted July 20, 2009 - 9:21pmI was all ready to quit smoking. I chose a day that would be my quit day. The night before, I was obsessed with smoking. I smoked as many cigarettes as I could manage. I actually went to bed feeling sick that night, probably from too much nicotene.
I woke up in the morning and went about my day, wanting a cigarette desperately at times, but determined not to have one. By 8:00 that night I thought if I could just have one I would be happy, and if I could go to bed tonight knowing that I only had one cigarette all day, that would be a major accomplishment.
Let me tell you that having "just one" cigarette is a sure-fire way to fail at quitting. All having "just one" cigarette does is make your craving for another one more intense. By the time I went to bed I had smoked ten "just one more" cigarettes.
I thought that when I woke up the next morning, I would quit again. But when I woke up, I wanted one so badly that I reasoned with myself, "Well I can just smoke one in the morning, one at lunch, one at dinner and one at bedtime, and then tomorrow I'll just quit". However, all the one in the morning did was make me want another one, and by lunchtime I had smoked five or six already. So I thought "Tomorrow I will just quit completely".
A month of tomorrows went by and I kept putting off quitting. There's always a reason to put off stopping something that you're addicted to. I could find reasons not to stop on this day, or this month, or until after summer is over, or after winter is over. There was never going to be a time when I could say "Oh, it would be easy to quit on this day or that day". I decided to just pick a day again and that would be it. I now knew what I absolutely could not do on that day or any other day after. I could not have "just one". Not ever again.
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I quite smoking 6 wks ago. I
I quite smoking 6 wks ago. I was not a real heavy smoker, like maybe 3 or 4 a day, but believe me I was addicted to those 3 or 4. I got the nicoteen patches to wear, but I didn't feel like it was helping so I stopped wearing those after 3 days. This is not my first attempt to quit smoking but I am fairly sure its my last. One lesson I did learn is after quiting for 3 months I thought I could handle having a couple of smokes only when I drink. That was the mistake, you can't just have one and still be disciplined, so I just cut it completely. I still crave them now but still feel like the habit is worse than the actual addiction. I used cigarettes for so many things. Like my first one of the day would be at 6pm when I got home from work and boy did I look forward to it. The second was after dinner. Then maybe one with a glass of wine and then 1 before going to bed. And then of course is I was stressed I would use that as reason to smoke more or if I had monthly cramps a cigarette always helped, or even If I needed to make a phone call and needed to get away from the noisy kids I would go out and smoke. It was like my lil sanctuary. But just be strong. My hubby and I are quiting together so we keep each other strong and then I always keep in mind how much it means to my 2 girls that we quit. Good luck!!
Happy Days, Bren
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