Continuing the Quest to Quit Smoking
August 20th, 2008 by AndyIt has been nearly 2 months since I challenged myself to quit smoking. While I can’t say that I’m 100% smoke free that this point, I can say that I have made quite a bit of progress and still remain committed to quitting. The truth is, it has been a little bit harder than I had expected.
Before quitting I had heard from others that if you could make it 3 days without a cigarette, you’d be in the clear. That wasn’t true for me. As soon as I began quitting I started to notice a couple problems. Nearly all of them, probably thanks to the patches were related to my mental addiction. Perhaps my biggest problem was that I couldn’t focus because my routine had been broken. I felt the constant urge to have a cigarette in my mouth. Before long I had to cheat. My productivity fell, and with it my confidence did as well.
At that point I began to "Cheat". At first I snuck way too many cigarettes, but within a few days, I realized what I was doing, and forced myself back to one or two a day. Since then I have managed to maintain this while still reducing the levels of the patches. Within the last 2 weeks, there have been a few days that I didn’t smoke, and never thought about it. With this, I have noticed a few things that lead to me "sneaking" cigarettes.
- Going into the office is a huge trigger for me. On days I’m not in the office, I can avoid having a cigarette until 7 or 8pm even if I’m around other people smoking. This doesn’t really surprise me because I really started smoking more than 1 or 2 a day at work, when I was working with other people. As a result, the more I stay away from the office, the better. I also discovered that moving down a level in patches on a day that I will be in the office is a BAD idea.
- Adopting better eating habits also helps. I’m less likely to sneak a smoke on days where I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. If I’m hungry, I want a smoke. If I eat, the craving goes away. It is important to not that I’m not eating more because I’m not smoking, but just redistributing my caloric intake more evenly throughout the day.
- When I don’t smoke, I get tired. When this happens it helps to take a nap rather than lighting a cigarette. A 25 minute nap is usually all that it takes to snap me out of it, and get me moving again.
With all of this said, I’m sure some of you are wondering how I manage to stay dedicated to quitting despite all of this apparent "failure." Its simple. I don’t consider it failure when I sneak a smoke, but instead consider it progress because I am smoking less this week than I was last week. I’m still managing to break my old habits and forge new, better habits at the same time. Doing so allows me to focus on my success, and remain motivated and excited about quitting.
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August 20th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
[...] QJoe wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIt has been nearly 2 months since I challenged myself to quit smoking. While I can’t say that I’m 100% smoke free that this point, I can say that I have made quite a bit of progress and still remain committed to quitting. … [...]