Quit Meter
$22,613.65
Amount Saved
Quit Meter
Days: 604 Hours: 13
Minutes: 34 Seconds: 53
Life Gained
Quit Meter
4391
Smoke Free Days
Quit Meter
87,820
Cigarettes Not Smoked
I am down for most of this week on a big project at work. I go in early and leave late while I am here. This leaves me time to take the boys to school, dentist appointments, and so on when I am at home. It also means getting back to my hotel room which has been the location of some of my most pleasant smoking experiences in solitude after a stressful day.
To offset this I have been going for a beer before coming back to the room and bringing a beer back to the room with me. By the end of the second beer I am tired enough to want to sleep. Another leg on this strategy is that by falling asleep early I can get up early enough to reflect on how the effort to quit went the day before and write for this blog.
It was only now that I realized I was actually through the first two weeks and into the third week. I had meant to celebrate getting through the first two weeks. Now I will still celebrate and it will be with my family instead of alone in a hotel so the day delay is a blessing in disguise.
Quit Meter
$23,292.50
Amount Saved
Quit Meter
Days: 750 Hours: 4
Minutes: 38 Seconds: 40
Life Gained
Quit Meter
3850
Smoke Free Days
Quit Meter
84,700
Cigarettes Not Smoked
Tonight has been a struggle. At different points of the day at work I found myself promising myself the reward of a smoke if I just kept going. I knew this was old behavior rearing tis head but I had nothing to put against it at the time.
I think this might be a good thing, actually, because there was no struggle in the moments, just the behavior arising, a slight flutter of hope from my desire, and then it went away. If I had put something against it I would have made more of it and maybe empowered it. The advice of yield to overcome seems to have served well in this instance.
However, tonight it became more than just a passing voice. It became a pressure inside driving the desire. I did not know what to do. I still do not have the confidence to confront it directly; I have lost too many times in the past by doing that. I kept among people so I would not be alone with it and I drank one beer too many so I could not drive to the store to get a smoke. Then I fell asleep.
Quit Meter
$22,613.65
Amount Saved
Quit Meter
Days: 604 Hours: 13
Minutes: 34 Seconds: 53
Life Gained
Quit Meter
4391
Smoke Free Days
Quit Meter
87,820
Cigarettes Not Smoked
My main reason for wanting to quit is about will-power and personal liberty. If I do not have the inner strength to decide not to smoke then I am a slave to this and who knows what else. And I have not truly tasted what being free is and what that means to me.
Day 11. Maybe I was so exhausted by yesterday’s attempts to remain even-tempered, or at least not to get angry, that today I did not have a thought about smoking. We had a birthday party to go in the late afternoon for friends of our children, two of them in the same family having a joint party. And we wanted to finish cleaning and prepping the house and yard for Christmas. Then I got a message from my son in Europe that he had missed his flight to his next destination.
I spend the morning rearranging a flight for him and being mad with him for not getting to the airport on time. And we spent the day getting the place ready and went across to the party in the evening. It was a fairly subdued party by our group’s standards because it was Sunday night and we had to stop earlier than usual to get to our various Monday morning activities. However, one person that is new said how wonderful it was that we created memories like this for our children, which was a warm-hearted way to end the week.
Day 12 was a Monday. I spend the first hour at my home office desk faffing around, trying not to think about smoking. Then realized I had a whole new life to start – getting registered and then training to attend. I was so busy for the rest of the day that I did not have a chance to think about anything. At night I was preparing for a four day stint away, which I was not looking forward to, so the evening went by smoke-thought free as well.
I do have pangs every now and then, sometimes they are a feeling that I am missing something or something is missing, sometimes they are a desire for the experience. But in general life rolls on and usually over them.
