My first day as a non-smoker. Ugh. I haven’t had a smoke since midnight of last night. And I’m nic-fitting bad.
Grrrrrrr.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been having increasing difficulty with the simple act of breathing. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. After having some difficulty last night, I had had enough. As I finished off the last half of a borrowed cigarette, I knew that it may be my last for a good long while.
Most of today was ok, but there were times where I thought I could just easily step outside and breathe a little bit of smoke, or just pick up a cig and make my lungs feel like they’re working, or whatever. I keep expecting a cig to be nearby and lit, and when I realize and remind myself that I’ve quit, it’s such a shock.
But here’s the good part: I can breathe, and I can breathe better than yesterday. Over the course of the day, my lungs have been tweaking a bit, tightening and relaxing (as they’re accustomed to doing), but overall the lack of smoke in them has produced less phlegm, less to hack up. The hacks are now getting dry, though; I have a prescription of guaifenesen caplets (horse pills) to help release the crud.
Overall, I’ve been on the up-and-up, kinda chipper today, but I still feel tired, drained, tense about the craving. Ugh. Hoping that drinking a lot of extra water and extra Coca-Cola will help keep me going. I’ve never had a nicotine-withdrawal headache before; stupifying.
But this is my goal, folks; I want to quit, I need to quit smoking. I finally understand that I can’t moderate myself when it comes to “the hunger”; if I “taper off” I’m still smoking a pack a day. The past month has shown me that much. Smoking may be my death if I don’t quit now. My cardio-pulmonary systems surely depend on going without it. I just hope my psycho-nervous system can cope.
Wish me luck, folks.