My name is Meredith.

The "sort of" is that I haven't actually stopped smoking; I just haven't had any nicotine since 11:15pm Monday. Herbal cigs of my own making. Plan to actually quit at the end of the year. If you're gonna ban me as a poser, do it (see below).

Nicotine withrdrawal is very much its own drug...

• dizziness ...check
• can't think about anything else ...check
• ditziness ...check
• irritability ...omg check
• sleep disturbance ...check
• Why doesn't anyone talk about the  antsiness!?!?! Criminy, it's like 24/7 cocaine! 

Actually, come to think, it also feels a lot like the ill-treated concussion I had last year.

This is this first time I've tried anything remotely like fully quitting, though I got "quit-curious" for 24 hours exactly (24:01, spark went the lighter), and it's been scary as anything. I've never tried before because what's the point and I don't know how and I'm just. going. to. fail. I'm more than enough of a mean ol' B on a good nicotine-filled day and I've got poo for willpower anyhow. Yesterday I screamed at my groceries for spilling across the back seat.

I don't know what snapped in me to get me fired up enough to even try, so I can't say, "Oh, do this and this and stick the right formula in and poof, bound and determined to quit."  Heck, I don't know that I'm gonna be successful here, and yeah, the thought of having to go through all this, all over again, makes it worse. 

But I just can't stand being trapped anymore and I've got to do something, even if I'm doing it quirky-style (how the heck else would I do it really?) and dealing with the nicotine addiction first (herbal cigarettes), and I probably won't have actually stopped smoking for another three months or more, so what am I even doing on this forum with people who have the grapes to actually quit. Says the addiction. They're gonna kick you off, it says, for being a poser. Probably the same day your husband leaves 'cause there was just one too many sharp-tongued comments. (Reality says he's stinkin' awesome and would tie me down and force-feed me nic gum first, but it's so hard to hear reality when the demon gets so loud...)

God grant me the serenity to accept what I can't change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Short form, sanitized for politeness: Forget* It. That's the foundation of all of this for me, Forget* It and Forget* Nicotine, and I desperately hope it's enough. For the entire rest of my life.

Just over 36 hours. Here goes nothin'.

57 hours free of nicotine! About half done with the actual bare-bones physical part. Funny how I didn't take a nap yesterday and I was no more tired at the end of the day than usual, possibly a bit less. Now, that I was cruising the quit forum instead of ohsay working is another thing... I'm actually finding myself smoking quite a bit more than usual, presumably trying the old access to nicotine. With luck that'll die down as my brain gets the message there won't be any. And/or my brain devises some new torture to try and get some nicotine. I've heard that's why heroin withdrawal is so painful; "let's try this awfulness and you know how to make it stop." Today I'll just be thankful to get some dang work done; I've settled down long enough to get in about 5 hours of work in the last two days. 

One. Foot. In front of the other. Foot.

Go Meredith!  Atta girl!

Three days! I'm gonna have ice cream even if it is 11pm. ;D

Good for you!

The ice cream was dumb; I was awake until 330am. Not 19 anymore...but I'll sleep well tonight, I guess. And I don't have to go /any/where today so diminished judgment won't be too impactful. Probably.

LOL.  I'm at work not being productive AT. ALL.  I'm just trying to make it thru.

Lol, yeah, it's work time for me too...I've gotten like one workday accomplished in the last three. I'm freelance and it's piecework, so there's no just being "at work," I'm either doing the thing I get paid for or I'm not. The distraction of all these weird-ass sensations hasn't helped. Thankfully I can lean back on super chill clients. ;D

What's getting me right now, other than being tired lol, is that whole not being numb thing. It finally dawned on me yesterday that, while any change makes me cranky and nicotine withdrawal especially, what's showing up is actually just me.

I've been SO impatient the last three days and I have to wonder if all of that has just been getting covered up these last 23 years.

(Almost exactly, actually! I started at the beginning of the school year, my first year of college. That is to say, just about the second I was out of mom's house.;)

It's daunting and a little scary to think this is who I really am -- junkie thinking tells me it's for the best that I numbed it out and should go back. (Shush, darling, the grownups are talking.) But I'm in this for the freedom, and authentically having thoughts and feelings and being responsible for my brain, frontal lobe to amygdala, is absolutely part of that. 

And I do have tools; it's not like things have been completely masked all this time. I've had to develop /some/ skill with acknowledging how I'm actually being and shifting it, and the nicodemon can't keep that with it in its little cage.

So I breathe, collect my patience about me, and step into raw, clear, authentic LIFE.

Maybe like you I didn't really want to quit, but did it on a whim, non NRT and cold turkey.  Now I'm 5 months clear.  Nice piece of writing.  I really appreciate a witty, gritty, honest and unpretentious post :-)  Good luck to you however you beat the beast.