One Year Smoke Free

WOW....what a difference a year makes. A year ago, I wss off to volunteer as the camp nurse for the second year. At camp, you obviously cannot smoke. As I did the year before, I quit for the week. The first year, I actually thought I would quit for good. I didn't make it but 4 weeks. Last year, I planned to just make it through the week. However, I kept going. As soon as we finished the NINE hour drive, we met friends at a bar (I was childless for the week). I remember crying because I wanted one so badly. I kept thinking that if I made it on that long roadtrip, I could make it longer. How crazy is that. I cried in a bar because I wanted a cigarette!!! Today, that seem crazy, but at the time it took everything I had to not smoke. For the next 8 weeks, it was really, really hard. Every day brought struggles. Once I made it to two months, I knew there was no going back. I still had occassional times where it was hard from monthss 2 - 4, but it lessened every day. Months 4 - 6 brought odd urges and weird dreams occassionally, but it wasn't hard to keep going. Month 6 - 12 were a breeze. Never even struggled. Yes, sometimes it smelled good. Yes, I occassionally walk outside for no reason and then realize why. But, the effort required at this point is NOTHING. If you are trying to quit, just focus on the first 2 months. Patches, gum, food, drink, whatever, just make it for the first 8 weeks. Get a counter and see how fast the cigarettes not smoked and the money saved change. I cannot believe that I would have smoked over 8500 cigarettes in this last year if I had not quit.

I feel SO much better this year. Obviously, running and exercise is easier, but it iss much more than that. Life is more relaxing. I can sit and watch a whole movie with my daughter cudding with me. I am not constantly worrying about it. When we went to Busch Gardens, I am not alway thinking about when I can have another or about getting them wet.

of course, on the day that my quit counter flipped to a year, my computer died. I was bummed, but my co-workers went to happy hour with me to celebrate (it was childless week 2008). We went to Friday's and had a really cool waiter a great time.