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Get your car cleaned or detail it yourself. Maybe buy a car air freshner to make it smell nice. Having a car that doesn't reak of stale cigarette smoke is truly one of the perks of quitting.
three wolves, on the date of your first post in this thread, I celebrated eight years of being smoke-free. After 55 years of a two-pack-a-day habit, I was told I was going to need heart surgery to replace a faulty aortic valve. Let me assure you that this was a defect totally non-related to my smoking habit. I knew that waking up from surgery with an 11 inch incision in my chest would not be pleasant, and the added "early morning smoker's cough" would surely add to the anguish. So on the second day of November, at 6:30 AM, I smoked my last smoke. That was in 2004 and when I had surgery in January of 2005, I only had to contend with the surgical recovery.
It can be done. I'm living proof. The only requirement? Ya gotta wanna. Hang in there.
The car seems to be a huge trigger for lots of smokers. I personally have a theory that smokers actually have ADHD, and actually smoke to self medicate. Being in a car is enclosed, and hyper folks, are stuck. They crave some sort of gross motor activity. Smoking allows activity and also the nicotine self medicates and calms the person down...
Just a theory....glad you have not smoked at lunch or at work...
Actually, you are absolutely correct. I have been paying attention to when I want a smoke. Typically, during a day, if I can have just a puff or two, not an entire cigarette, my "need" for nicotine is fulfilled. It's when I'm bored that I want to smoke. Not when I'm stressed or in a hurry or busy with something, it's when I'm bored.
I am hyper. And yes, in the car, I'm stuck. People say, "enjoy the ride". I would, if everyone would get out of my way. So yah, I feel "stuck" because I can't even enjoy it and all I want to do is GET HOME so I can be free to move about and do what I want to do.
I believe you have nailed it quite well. That's something I will think about to help me get past the car part.
Would you care to elaborate on what that "Hand exerciser thingy" might be ?
Something to do with your hand to keep it occupied while you're driving. I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, yep, I will smoke in my car which means I don't always have two hands on the wheel but I don't fiddle with every dial in my car like the heat or the a/c or the radio or whatever it is because we should be paying attention to driving.
I guess the smoking is such that I don't have to concentrate on smoking while driving but me playing with something to keep my hand occupied would take some concentration. Maybe I'm wrong, I just feel weird about having a rubber ball in my hand while I'm supposed to be driving. I don't make sense because again, I have one hand with a smoke...but, that's not the entire drive.
I'm probably a hypocrite here...like I said, I'm torn. Just seems like this thing would be a distraction.
Quote:
Originally Posted by theatergypsy
three wolves, on the date of your first post in this thread, I celebrated eight years of being smoke-free. After 55 years of a two-pack-a-day habit, I was told I was going to need heart surgery to replace a faulty aortic valve. Let me assure you that this was a defect totally non-related to my smoking habit. I knew that waking up from surgery with an 11 inch incision in my chest would not be pleasant, and the added "early morning smoker's cough" would surely add to the anguish. So on the second day of November, at 6:30 AM, I smoked my last smoke. That was in 2004 and when I had surgery in January of 2005, I only had to contend with the surgical recovery.
It can be done. I'm living proof. The only requirement? Ya gotta wanna. Hang in there.
Congratulations! That's amazing. I'm in awe because that must have been hard.
Sometimes I wanna...some days I don't. I like smoking. I just realized when I had to do that stupid run, that even though I would have had problems with breathing anyway, (because it was SO DANG COLD), the smoking certainly did not help! It has to be done...I don't want to feel like that again when running in the cold.
I have run in warmer weather and that did not even happen, that gasping for breath. I use my Wii to work out and am working up a sweat and doing some aerobics and I don't gasp for breath. The cold really did me in...but! I also know, smoking made it worse than it would have been. It would have been rough no matter what...I'm not used to breathing in fricken ice when I run...and I remember when I first moved here, it was hard for me to catch a breath due to the cold. (Like, when I would be outside and had to yawn, I could never yawn because it was so cold, I couldn't breathe right.) The cold had a lot to do with it, the smoking made it worse...so, considering there may be days at my job where I have to run in the cold, I have to stop.
I did the POST physical fitness test, passed, but I know, if I was a smoker, I would have never made it. The run about killed me. Which has made me increase my fitness.
I did the POST physical fitness test, passed, but I know, if I was a smoker, I would have never made it. The run about killed me. Which has made me increase my fitness.
Have you tried the patch or Nicorette gum?
The Nicorette gum REALLY helped me quit. It just takes the edge off the nicotine craving. Eventually I weaned myself off the Nicorette. Haven't smoked in 14 yrs & can honestly say I don't miss it even a little.
I did the POST physical fitness test, passed, but I know, if I was a smoker, I would have never made it. The run about killed me. Which has made me increase my fitness.
Have you tried the patch or Nicorette gum?
I thought I had written about that. If not, yes, I have tried the patch. I did level 1, even though it was less than the amount I smoked at the time. I'm glad I did level 1 because level 2 would have probably dropped me.
I could not put the thing on until I got to work because for the first 15 minutes, my arm itched like crazy. Then, for an hour, I would feel sick beyond belief. I could not even concentrate, could only hang my head and slur my speech because it made me so sick for that hour. After that, it did a decent job with the exception of the initial "breathing in" part that I missed no matter what I tried to take my mind off of it.
I would try to read a book and could not concentrate, could only think about how badly I just wanted to inhale. I would walk up and down the emergency exit stairs at lunch, (over 600 stairs), and that did not take the edge off.
In the end, it didn't work because of that "inhale" part I missed.
Where I now work, while I have been forced to learn how to "take a break", (if you can call what we get, "breaks"), without having a cigarette, (and I'm doing well, surprisingly), I still have times, like an hour before it's time to go, where I reallllllllly want to have just a puff. Just one!
However, I absolutely can NOT have any moment of time where I am out of it due to feeling so sick because of the nature of my job. I absolutely cannot have that.
I want to try an ecig but they won't even let us have those. It's not tobacco and there is no smoke but I think they don't fully understand WHAT an ecig is simply based on their explanation about, "going outside to puff away on a the ecig". Um, no, that's not what you do on an ecig. You take a puff, you blow out water vapor, you put it back in your pocket. I could do that in the bathroom and no one would ever know I had a hit of nicotine.
They do allow patches and gum but, again, I cannot have a single moment of being too loopy with nausea so those would not work.
Ecig would be the best answer...I just have to convince them what an ecig actually IS.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BunnyBinkies
The Nicorette gum REALLY helped me quit. It just takes the edge off the nicotine craving. Eventually I weaned myself off the Nicorette. Haven't smoked in 14 yrs & can honestly say I don't miss it even a little.
Hang in there Three Wolves, you can do this!!
Thanks. The true test will come by the end of the month when I move to 12 + hour shifts. And God forbid if I get "mandated". (That means overtime, whether you like it or not.) I could, realistically, be working 17 hours on any given day. Seventeen hours without a single puff. And there's not a thing I can do about it.
The good news is, the job is definitely not boring, there is always something going on and during this training period, when I've been doing parts of the job, actually doing it, time flies. I don't even think about smoking because I'm so busy. For the first time in a very, very, very long time, I have a job that is not boring. Not saying it's fun, I'm saying it's not boring.
I smoke when I'm bored.
We'll see how it goes.
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