Finally! My Efforts Have NOT Gone Up In Smoke!

Number of Days without smoking: 9

It’s official. I’ve gotten through what many ex-smokers say is a milestone: 1 week without a cigarette! Unlike the previous week that included a Saturday night relapse, I haven’t given into my cravings at all this past week. It’s been nine days without and my habit is starting to lose its control over me. Before now, my cravings felt overpowering and I had to use all my strength and will power to not succumb. Now, when I have a craving, my rational mind is in charge again rather than my body’s physical withdrawal. I actually get angry at the cravings, thinking, “How dare you show up! You’re not getting the best of me!” And I grab a piece of gum or candy to chew until the craving passes.

I believe the strength of my incentive to quit pushed me through last week (the last two weeks, for that matter). I really wanted the public relations job opening I mentioned in a previous blog. I knew without question that smoking and PR work do not go hand in hand. And not wanting to be associated with smoking—meaning, no hint of the smell anywhere on me, my clothes, my truck, or my furniture—was an immediate nix for my chances at being hired. And now, I got the job!!!!!!!

This cold-turkey has not done withdrawal cold. I have chosen a gradual step-down with Nicoderm CQ patches. I just completed Step 1 (21mg for 2 weeks) and started Step 2 last night (14mg for 2 weeks). I am so happy I took this route because the patch has taken some of the “edge” off the physical withdrawal, making it easier for me to stay in control. However, I have some itching and slight skin irritation where the patch is adhered. I also don’t like the redness and ring of adhesive left behind on my skin when I remove the depleted patch. And because I want to be discreet about quitting, my back looks like a red “patch”-work. But, I think the benefits far outweigh any side effects I’m experiencing.

I’m looking forward to the next week without smoking as I attempt to integrate a regular exercise regimen into my schedule!

Handy Candy for a Cold-Turkey

Aside from a lonely Saturday night setback of two cigarettes over the weekend, I’m on Day 5 without any cigarettes! The cravings have come on often, but they have lessened with each day of not smoking. When the cravings have hit me, I quickly turn to my readily handy, steadfast vice...candy and gum! I have used an assortment of these craving side-steppers and offer the following suggestions for those also preparing to quit smoking or are in the early stages of nicotine withdrawal:

CHEWING GUM: This has been my mainstay vice with packs tucked in my truck console, my purse, on my vanity, and next to the TV remote. I prefer sugarless gum because it doesn’t become hard to chew after 30 minutes, unlike the sugar-based gum (not to mention a lot less calories!). This means that my jaw doesn’t get easily sore, so I can keep resorting to a new piece when a frequent craving begins brewing. The flavor also seems to last much longer with sugarless gum, too. Because I always had an “ashtray” taste in my mouth as a smoker, I prefer the minty gum flavors. But, I keep some fruity flavors on hand to avoid boredom with the mint flavors. Icebreakers’ Ice Cubes sugarless gum from Hershey’s are my favorites because of the texture from the ground candy “crystals” in each piece.

Sugarless Faves: Icebreakers’ Ice Cubes’ “Spearmint” and “Kiwi Watermelon”; Orbit’s “Maui Melon Mint” and “Bubblemint”; Extra’s “Spearmint”.

Sugar-based Faves: Bazooka’s “Original” flavor; Super Bubble Gum's “Original” flavor.

HARD CANDIES: Unlike my chewing gum, I prefer the sugar-based hard candies instead. The flavor is sharper and more satisfying than the sugarless versions of the same candy. And, if I’m getting satisfaction from the sugar-based versions, then I eat fewer at a time—keeping my calorie count down! Hard candies have been ideal for me when watching TV because the flavor stays vibrant and last for several minutes.

Sugar-based Faves: Jolly Rancher “Original Flavors” Candy; LifeSavers’ “Original” flavors; Crème Savers’ “Strawberry & Crème”.

Sugarless-based Faves: Sugar-Free Nips; BreathSavers’ “Wintergreen”; Sugar-Free Werther’s Original.

LOLLIPOPS: As “hard candy on a stick”, lollipops appear to meet not just the oral fixation need of smoking, but also can compensate for the need to keep my hands busy, too. However, I find suckers activity restrictive because of stick hanging out of my mouth. As a smoker, I wasted a lot of time to stay near my lit cigarette and lollipops remind me too much of that habit. However, the lollipops with a soft- candy center are fun when my cravings are extremely strong and I need to attentively refocus my energy.

Sugar-based Faves: Blowpops; Tootsie Pops; Dum Dum Pops.

Sugarless Faves: The generic $1 bags of kid-proof handle lollipops you see at doctor's offices.

Tapering the week

I haven’t thrown in the towel yet. Whew! This new job prospect still has me stoked. I’m making considerable strides in tapering off. I’ve averaged about 3-4 cigarettes a day this last week. I am able to stave off the morning cigarette and have been going for long stretches without smoking. I still hit points in my day (usually late afternoon/evening time) and give in to my cravings. If I want this job, I have to quit smoking. There’s no way around it.

I went clothes shopping for updated business attire. I’ve gained 10 pounds from stress eating, which kind of bummed me out while shopping. I fear how much weight I will gain when I completely quit smoking? Experts say that once a person quits, that person’s metabolism temporarily slows down. Stress is making me exhausted with hopping on the treadmill being the last thing I want to do. I’m hoping that with a new job, my daily routine will adjust and I’ll sleep better (because it’s stressful not working right now as well). Then maybe I’ll have enough energy to exercise and counter the slowed metabolism?

I don’t have much to report this week. But, I’m making progress and haven’t given up!

Taking Charge!

Well, I made it through spring “break” in one piece. The stress levels I’ve been trying to overcome taught me some things about myself. This introspection resulted in me making some tough, but for me, appropriate decisions to attain the goals I’ve set out to achieve. Quitting smoking is among the top of that list because smoking has taken away so many positives from several areas in my life. My post, “Step 1: Contemplation” illustrates just how much my smoking has hindered me.

The priorities in my life right now are quitting smoking, obtaining my Bachelor’s degree, and acquiring experience in my career field. With this being my first semester at Drury, I don’t feel like I’ve taken enough charge of the latter two priorities because I’m still busy adapting to a new school. This has generated enormous stress and, thus, also sabotaged my first priority to quit smoking. So, I’ve made some missteps during my first semester, but a momentary “melt-down” of sorts over spring break drove me to make some serious adjustments.

I didn’t listen to my own intuition when my academic advisor encouraged me to not only enroll in an 8-week block class that also included an online teaching component, but to enroll in two of these structured courses at the same time! Because the rapidly growing trend for education is leaning towards online courses, those that excel in a traditional classroom environment seem like the exception these days rather than the norm? So I felt like an incompetent reject because I couldn’t digest nor keep up with a blended-class work load these last two weeks. Maybe I am weird, but I realized that people learn in different ways and I am a traditional student that learns better in a seated, 16-week class structure.

So, I took charge of my educational path and dropped those two courses. This was a tough decision and even tougher to explain to my core support system of family and friends. I’ve missed out on credit hours that would have completed my degree sooner and I feel like I’m off to a bumpy start towards the next level of my educational goals. But, ultimately, the stress levels have lowered. I am seriously considering changing my major to a business degree and have a longer appointment with my academic advisor next week to create a comprehensive game plan for my remaining semesters. Having a written plan will also do wonders for my stress and motivation levels.

The second hard decision I have made is to stream line the activities I’m involved with outside of school to only include those that are gaining me real experience in my career field. I am making arrangement to end my involvement in a pilot project that I became involved with through my schooling at OTC. The direction the project is taking has changed and no longer meets my career evolvement needs. This was partially my “baby”, but I’m ready to turn it over to those that are more likely to benefit.

I believe in “signs” of sorts—messages or “kudos” from Jesus that I’m making the right choices and I’m getting some added help from Above. Almost instantaneously after making these tough decisions and beginning to tackle them, I got notice of an amazing job opening that has the potential to grow my professional skills in a way I could have never imagined. I’m tailoring my resume for submission and hope the opportunity is granted. This job has a large PR component to it, so I have to acknowledge Jesus for breathing new motivation into my life to quit smoking, ASAP!

The nicotine patch will be back on my arm tomorrow. My car is getting a professional cleaning and I’m going shopping for a new suit this week as I focus on going after this exciting job position. Stress levels are becoming manageable again and I will chart my progress as, once again, I take on my nicotine withdrawal this week!

The Stress Monster

Is it the mid-semester crunch or am I failing to get a grip on my stress levels? Spring break has afforded me no reprieve as I feel like a “chicken running with its head cut off”. I was excited and motivated when I set out on my mission to quit smoking. Now, I’m afraid that motivation is slipping away as I juggle online courses (that has disregarded spring break due to lack of the school’s planning), related homework, deadlines, and other various objectives outside school. Right now, I’m “flying by the seat of pants” to juggle all that I need to get done every day. My mom’s visit this weekend was rushed and wound up not being as pleasant and relaxing as we both would have liked because I am absolutely stressed out!

I’m still searching for a way to build that “margin” into my life that I wrote about in my last blog. Smoking cessation experts say that a person should not choose a quit date during high peaks of stress because of the low success rate. I fall into that category, but I still want to quit? So, how do I get these extreme stress levels under control? And how do I even find the time to back up for a moment and evaluate my work overload? I’m treading water right now, ya’ll? I’m just tackling tasks as they’re thrown at me. Using mindfulness as the tactic to approaching my busy days seems to have gotten lost. Maybe this is just the life of a college student, but it’s freaking me out?!

I want to throw in the towel on trying to quit smoking because I see no end in sight. I’m feeling powerless and completely frustrated! This will be a short blog because I am on overload with no solutions and blogging about my nicotine monster is only adding to the frustrating failure. Let’s hope my next blog is more positive?

Finding My "Breathing" Room

There is not much to report this week. I’m still smoking less than a half a pack a day. From my last blog, I chose to focus on this outcome as progress rather than a total defeat. And I gave myself some small rewards: a cup of frozen yogurt from TCBY, a membership to the YMCA, and I also started re-organizing my catch-all guest room into a meditation and workout room.

My mom is coming into town from St. Louis for a visit this weekend. I’m excited to see her and am going to take the weekend with her as an opportunity to limit my smoking even further. I know she’ll be a great cheerleader!

I think one culprit impeding my progress is my stress levels. I’ve been reading a great book called, Stress Less by Dr. Don Colbert. He offers practical tips on how to lower one’s stress levels through nutrition, proper sleep, exercise, and mindset. He sprinkles in various biblical scripture as it relates to his medical tips. It’s a mind, body, and spirit approach.

I get so caught up in the business of the life that I often find myself ignoring the impact that stress is having on my physical, spiritual, and emotional health. I know I’m hitting stress overload when my body starts having itchiness all over with no source, such as dry skin or an allergic reaction to my laundry soap. And tons of lotion, drinking water, and hydrocortisone provide little relief. Over the last two weeks, my legs, arms, and back have started the “phantom” itching, so I know it’s time to pay attention to my stress levels.

One section of his book, “Building ‘Margin’ Into Your Life”, is of particular interest to me. Dr. Colbert states that a person has little or no margin in his or her life when the person has crammed too many obligations into his or her schedule. Consequently, this depletes a person’s energy to engage in the goals that really do matter to him or her. And, thus, stress rises. Reversely, building margin means evaluating my goals, re-prioritizing, and eliminating the tasks that really aren’t relevant to my objectives.

Stress is what keeps me smoking that remaining half pack of cigarettes. By taking the approach of building some more margin into my life (a difficult feat for my type A personality!), my hope is that I can lower my stress levels by creating “room” to breathe. This will be my mission as I do some inner reflection and get some insight this weekend from my favorite mentor—my mom!

The Small Successes

As you know from my last blog, I hit a stumbling block last week. It’s out of my hands and will work out however it works out. I can’t put my energy and focus on it. I have too much in this life that I want to accomplish. So, I’m leaving it like Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big (ladies, you’ll know where I’m coming from with that!).

That being said, have I abstained from smoking? The answer is no. And I have been beating myself up over this answer for a week now. But, a good friend pointed something out to me that I refused to give myself credit for: the small successes.

I’m a perfectionist. And with major goals, I tend to be black and white, all or nothing. Always striving to do better and be better. And I will beat myself up when I fall short of my goal. Yet, as the same good friend points out, I often fail to appreciate the process.

So, that’s what I need to do. I need to acknowledge my accomplishments and recognize them for what they are...progress. For two years, I have only known life as a smoker. So, I need to look at my missteps, but focus more on my successes and appreciate them! So here they are:

• I have cutback, tremendously. I went from smoking over a pack a day to (as of yesterday) only having smoked 4 cigarettes. (Smoked more today only because I’m writing. Progress, none the less.)

• I have changed my routine and broken my hardest habit: the morning cigarette when I wake up.
  
• I have cut back on my caffeine (another trigger) to 1 cup of coffee or tea a day.
  
• I have abstained from the urge to smoke after a meal.
  
• I am currently laundering all my curtains, linens, etc. to limit where I can smoke.
  

I want to leave this week’s blog with the above list. Today, I will recognize my accomplishments. Today, I will appreciate my success and build on that!