Day 20 (November 15)

Day 20 should be easier than, say, Day 10 right? Yeah, no. It's not. I have no idea why but the past 3 days have been almost as hard as the first 3 days. The only way I will be happy is if I could move into a cabin in the woods and not have any contact with anything that could remotely annoy me. 

I'm trying to figure out why it's been so bad and there's one possibility. I drove a ton Friday and Saturday and smoking and driving go hand in hand. Another possibility is not sleeping enough. I'm stupid and don't like taking sleep aids so I'm knowingly making my life suck more than it needs to suck.

I also would like to give a knuckle sandwich to anyone who told me I'd have more energy now that I've quit. Maybe I would if I could sleep like a normal fucking person. 

My problem here is so minuscule and I feel like such a jerkass whining about not being able to smoke. 

I know I'm not going to start back up again. That would be tantamount to wrestling a grizzly bear in Sarah Palin's Alaska. I know this. I just have to suck it up and stop being a fucking baby. 20 days is pretty spectacular gosh darn it.
 

Day 16, you say? Darn right it is! (November 11)

Right there with you, Snoop. 

Again, last night, another test of my massively impressive willpower. I'm realizing that drinking has pretty much no effect on my wanting to smoke. It's the social aspect of smoking outside of a bar that I miss, but even that isn't crippling me or anything.I got some words of wisdom from an exceedingly attractive man (who is also a huge NCIS nerdy nerd like myself) at the bar last night and I'm experimenting with the "no patch" thing today. Every other day is going to be my rule until I'm to a point where I just say "f it" and stop it all together. I'm quite sick of evil nicotine and want to punch it in the throat.

The crabby factor isn't as high today as it was the other day. Perhaps the people around me would say different but they can suck it. I know I'm past the worst of it but I'm still kind of emotional about it, still miss it, still miss being stinky, miss ruining my skin, teeth etc. apparently.

At 30 days, I've decided to party like it's 1999. Hopefully by 30, I won't give a damn and I won't be a quitter but just a boring nonsmoker. Something to look forward to.

Burn Notice is back tonight. Unfortunately, I don't remember everything that happened in the mid-season finale cliffhanger. Oops.

 Bruce Campbell is awesome.

Day 15 (November 10)

I'm saddened to report that yesterday, the experiment to not wear the nicotine patch failed miserably. DAMMIT. I was crabby all day, cried for no reason no less than 3 times over such things as: someone not clearing a copy job from the copier, not being able to find my can opener and lastly, being stuck behind a dude with Independent stickers all over his SUV in the Liberty Tubes while he smoked the entire time. You wouldn't think that I could smell it, BUT I COULD. I should have taken down the dude's license so I could track down his address and mail him a knuckle sandwich. I refrained from putting a patch back on until my drive to work this morning so I'm thinking I'm going to try every other day. Lord have mercy.

I'm so freaking sick of hearing about Matt Lauer's stupid interview with our stupid former president. My current "overcoming of nearly impossible odds" and standing amongst my peers as an "inspiration," a "juggernaut of addiction-fighting" if you will, etc. etc. (:P) is infinitely more important than GW's stupid book (which we all know he didn't write himself). Clearly, I'm also infinitely more important than Lindsey Lohan's freaking mom (who Matt Lauer LOVES to interview - gross). What I'm trying to say is, I should be on the goddamned Today Show and be interviewed by Matt Lauer.I haven't figured out yet how to go about making this happen but mark my words, it will. If somehow my dream, my only current goal in life (other than being a nonsmoker duh) doesn't come to fruition,
.
 (Land of the Lost was a funny movie)

Today I will attempt to focus on all of the positives in my life (there are a lot) and stop being so whiny and bitchy. I mean, really, I'm making my life better.  My suffering and still wanting to smoke is for the Greater Good. In all actuality, my staying a nonsmoker is just as important an "issue" as our energy problems, global climate change (polar bears), the economy, etc. Yes, these are delusions of grandeur but if I pretend that the entire universe is counting on me to not smoke, how can I?

 

Day 14 (November 9)

So, 2 weeks not smoking. Does this officially make me a nonsmoker? Or do I have to stop wearing the patch to be a nonsmoker? I'm trying to make today the first day I exist without nicotine. I put my last patch on yesterday morning and just don't want to put a new one on today. I'm keeping the old one on as a security blanket/placebo effect type of thing. Trying to pull the wool over your own eyes is a bit retarded but I'm doing it anyway!

Yesterday I had happy hour with Jen and Billiam at the Garage. This was a True Test of my massively impressive (and, quite frankly, intimidating) willpower since I did most of my bar smoking there. A dude with stupid facial hair was sitting next to Jen chainsmoking and it smelled really yucky. A few other people in the bar were smoking and I silently judged every single one of them. I wanted to say "F it all" and buy a pack once but I just took a deep breath and moved on.

According to the scale this morning, I'm turning back into a big fat cow. I supposedly (I don't always "trust" my scale and feel like sometimes it has a vendetta against me and likes to make shit up) gained 5 lbs since last week. Smoking will kill me, 5 lbs won't. That's today's mantra.

I have to remember all of the awesome people who make me feel pretty cool for quitting. Work people, friends, etc. I say their names in my head similar to how Arya Stark in the A Song of Ice and Fire books did, though she would list all of the people she thought deserved to die. It gave her strength to say that list every night and in the same manner, it's giving me strength. We don't do anything in a bubble so this Massively Impressive thing I'm doing doesn't just effect me but everyone in my life too and that's pretty cool!

Life is grand. New episodes of Psych start tomorrow!

 

Day 13! (November 8)

Holy moly. Made it through ANOTHER weekend. Somehow. I still think about smoking all the damn time, repeating "I don't smoke anymore," in my head constantly. It's a bit exhausting. Thankfully, eating a dozen of these

from Giant Eagle (and for anyone familiar with their iced thumbprints, there's way more icing than these sad ones AND they have jimmies) yesterday and this morning helped. I'm going to gain literally all the weight I lost if I keep this up and that will result in depression which will result in smoking. GAH. I never had much of a sweet tooth but now that I'm not smoking, I want ridiculously sweet icing all the time. Sure, everyone knows I'm an icing fanatic already but this is different. I have never bought a dozen cookies with the express plan to eat them all by myself. Normally, other people (Justin, Bill) would share them too but this weekend? ALL MINE. Plus, I ate a piece of pumpkin roll that was just a bit smaller than my head.

Today the plan is to get the eating back on track and also decrease the patch usage. I didn't wear one yesterday (which could be directly correlated with shoving cookies in my face all day) and that's some progress.

I had to deal with some stress this weekend without smoking and I'm quite proud of myself overall. 

What I'm not proud of is forgetting to "fall back" my alarm clock and waking up an hour early this morning and not realizing until I was almost out the door. That's just cruel. I would like to blame my forgetfulness on not smoking, thank you.

Current mood: 

Day 10 (November 5)

It's Friday. Day 10. Last night after drinking a few beers, it was a little hard and the cravings were definitely there. Thankfully, working out (after drinking too, strange but I'm glad I did it) and eating most of a bag of sour cream and onion chips kept me from buying a pack. But odd things happened when I stopped at the store and gas station.

When I was at CVS buying the chips, I was standing in line, getting annoyed because I was standing in line and I ended up gazing longingly at cigarette display behind the counter for a few minutes. It's weird because many years ago when I was visiting the Great White North (Toronto, for Spring Break), I was all "offended" and "outraged" that their goofy government was able to change cigarette packs to have disgusting pictures of lungs, etc., and skulls and crossbones and big warning labels. Now, I almost wish packs looked like that in the US. The design of packs are enticing, something I've been used to seeing the majority of my life. I want them to be different now. Maybe I'll write my congressman. I've been meaning to write him anyway to complain about the fact that neither E!, VH1 nor Comedy Central have HD channels yet. It's an outrage.

Next, I stopped at the Sunoco across from the CVS because their drinks are cheaper. The dude behind the counter grabbed my typical smoke order (which, of itself, is kind of sad) that he memorized years ago and I had to tell him I quit. I swear to the baby Jesus he looked completely hurt by the news.That's ok though. I don't want to be known by random people by what I smoke anymore!!


A final little thing I also learned this week. I mentioned to a friend at work (one of my boss's advisees) what I'm doing when I get cravings (rubbing my patch, breathing deeply so I get lightheaded). He said that I'm changing my brain chemistry because I'm putting more oxygen into my blood. Of course, when I heard "changing brain chemistry" I interpreted it as "slowly building superpowers" so I completely expect to be able to see through walls and and control the minds of people around me within the month. Fair warning.


I rawr all of my awesome friends and family. 

Day 9 (November 4)

Yeah I skipped yesterday. Not sure why but it could be because I was busy at work and possibly because I'm doing somewhat better. I'm noticing that I'm missing the socializing aspect of smoking, especially at work. It'd be 7-10 minutes of being outside, seeing the nice maintenance dude in my building, talking about what pisses us off about our sports teams, etc. Outside of bars too while smoking was always a good time to meet nice people (and weirdos too). 

Eh, now I just sit at my desk from 8:30-5, no breaks, not even for lunch. I should probably take 2 walks when I'd normally be smoking but that's almost like pouring salt in the wound.

I'm still wearing the patch, though I'm not sure if I even need to. I'm thinking it's still some sort of security blanket. Maybe I think if I take it off I'm going to turn into a murderous, raging psychopath.

People keep telling me I'm going to start smelling and tasting better (not ME smelling and tasting better, but being ABLE to smell and taste better GOD). This hasn't happened yet I don't think. I had a Miller Lite at a fancy work function yesterday and it still tasted pretty lame-o. My diet is pretty bland overall and I eat the same things all the time so I'm kind of looking forward to the crap I cook tasting better. Or maybe I'll realize I'm a terrible cook and everything I make, minus hummus, tastes like garbage. Speaking of food, I read in the patch insert that nicotine withdrawal actually causes increased appetite. I always thought people gained weight when they quit just because they used food as a replacement. It's such bullshit that it's a side effect. More rubbing salt AND lemon juice into the wound.

I have many smoking tests coming up. Tomorrow happy hour and Saturday Justin's. If I can make it through those 2 things successfully I'm going to stop wearing the patch and just be done with it. I don't think I like having this crutch. 

 

Edit: I totally forgot to mention that again last night I had the whole "fear" side effect of the Welbutrin. It's so interesting because it only happens when my lights are off and I'm nodding off to sleep. When I'm reading in bed for 1-2 hours before I go to sleep, I'm fine! It's so bizarre. I did realize though that I forgot to take my second daily dose until about 7 so maybe again it's because I took it too close to bedtime. 

AND I just remembered that I forgot to take my dose this morning so I just took 2 and then read online that I'm not supposed to do this. It would be so pathetic if I die trying to quit. :P