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.

And then last night I finished Allen Carr's lovely book, declared myself a nonsmoker, and washed the ashtrays. Still gotta sort out storage/destinations for the DIY implements and herbs, and process the fact that I just wasted about $90 on supplies including the Honeyrose pre-fabbed herbal cigs. I guess I can return 'em...and certainly I have use for lavender and peppermint and coltsfoot and whatnot. Actually the cigarette blend per se would make a lovely cleansing/protecting shake for the carpets. Efficiency!
So now I get to discover what an adult nonsmoker does -- I've never been one before. :)