Ohohoh, becoming an ex-smoker is like having your period: lots of people know what you're going through, but not everyone, and those who don't know have no clue that there's a whole world of things about it.

Head is much calmer today. I even had a second dream in one week! This was also about school (i.e., retraining, i.e., becoming an ex-smoker), but rather than getting rejected for licensure and crying like I used to, I was getting settled in a dorm room and prepping for classes. The song Calling All Angels featured, which I take as indication to enlist the support of my Superfriends, Quan Yin, Jesus, and White Buffalo Calf Woman. Woke up with a different song in my head:

Come here. No, I won't say please. One more look at the ghost before I'm gonna make him leave.
Come here. I got the pieces here. Gonna gather up the splinters, build a casket for my tears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRUErh47sao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3lBF2h-Pl0

Good job Meredith!  I’m drinking water right now.  Today was a little heavier on the cravings for me as well.  Just gotta make it til bedtime!  

Welp, three weeks here in about an hour. With any luck last week's depression hole /was/ the ickiness. We shall see. 

Less active here partly because I seem to have gotten some of my ability to work back. Two days of a normal amount of work isn't yet a pattern but here's hoping. (Then I can start working on the amount of work I should be doing to pay off that resort vacation I'd bought...)

I guess that's the theme here: cautious optimism. 

And hold the perky...also why I haven't been super active. Just not much cheerleader over here the last couple days. Maybe it'll come back; maybe it won't. It's a discovery, what I've got to work with now, which bits are the real me...

 Two years ago I turned to my 16yo niece and said, "Don't do it. It's a trap." Since then the trap'd been getting more and more unbearable. 

We're getting free!

 "Say I really quit"...dealt with the same, smoking herbal cigs the first few days post nicotine. 

I went the other way around, with herbal cigs, until I let Allen Carr convince me otherwise and I declared myself quit-quit. Now I'm not so sure I wasn't right (for me) with my original plan to stay on the herbals for another little while after I got over the nicotine. Or that's the junkie thinking talking. Mistake or no, the deed is done and I won't renege, but I still wonder if this is just another instance of going someone else's way instead of my own. 

That, or this bout of resignation is being brought to you by the 3-week ickiness.

We shall see.

Meredith (GettinFree) said:

That, or this bout of resignation is being brought to you by the 3-week ickiness.

Excellent analysis.  Yeah, I'm feeling the blues over here.  Overwhelmed by work.  Hating EVERYTHING.  Apparently my brain decided to stop working today.  WTF.

Dumb and angry is just about my least favorite set of mental states ever. Yuuuck.  

Let's just get through today and see if we can't go to bed a little early tonight, get this poo of a day over with so we can be bright and shiny and smart and productive tomorrow.

Right????? Ok let’s do this

TED talk "Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong"

https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong

Thank goodness for this forum.

Very insightful.  Very interesting that connecting with others is at an all time low and addictions at a all time high ???? Lots to think about.  Glad we are all connecting here.