I’m caughing a lot today, spluttering and have a dry throat to boot. Could this be that my lungs are being re-built and as it is doing so it’s being prevented by the tar and muck that’s there already? Don’t know, but hope that fixes itself quick. Pissing me off, on top of a nagging headache and cravings…
not capitulating at all mind you, all I have to do is just picture what my lungs and heart must look like after 26 years with the weed. Ugh.
Comments
spluttering…
Yes – you will cough and not be able to breathe and in general feel like crap for a couple of more days. When I quit I thought the first 4 days were going to be hard, then found it the first week or so was really the hard part. Then the second week seemed like hell on earth, but then I felt like I kicked it. The absolute worst was after almost 4 weeks without I was going in to work – not even mindful of the smoke break area off on the side anymore – when someone there took a puff. The glow of the cigarette tip had such a lustful pull I almost went there. It’s an absurd addiction that is well worth suffering the withdrawal to get away from. In six weeks you will say ‘wow I feel GREAT’.
Now I have to do it all over again. After a year without I started again. You’ll never guess the reason so I’ll give a hint: a woman. She’s gone and I’m addicted worse than ever before. Not worth it!
I need to quit (again). I like the idea of blogging my withdrawal, so here it goes: my last smoke is ready to go after I submit this.
Re: spluttering…
I did quit it for a couple of years, but the reason I went back to smoking is because I was sad and alone at the time. I was in Europe when Amna – my daughter – called, crying, to tell me that our dog Sam had just passed away. I couldn’t do anything to get back home to be with them. Although I do remember another incident which was also horrific but I didn’t run for the packet: Hanan – my 2nd daughter – fell in school and broke her arm, you could see the bone protruding from her arm so it was horrific, she’s ok, thankfully there was an excellent doctor at the American Mission Hospital who fixed her up, but I didn’t resort to smoking to calm myself down.
What I am saying is that there are situations which have the potential to drive you right back to smoking, but these situations could be controlled. I believe that I went for a smoke at that time because I wanted to! Once an addict, always an addict, so even if you tell yourself that it’s just a puff and that’s it, you’ve done the harm because the next day you go to bed and you suddenly realised that you have smoked a whole pack, so you’re back to your ‘”normal” level in the glimpse of an eye.
I’m glad that you will give up too. Blog away here about your experience and let’s support each other! If you do have your own blog, let me know the address so we can prop each other up!
Another thing (I like to keep things complicated, what the hell!) is that since just before Ramadhan (a week now) I did the customary thing and stopped alcohol. That one is temporary in respect of the month though!
Today was hard. I was sitting in the office doing stuff and my mind kept wandering off to how “wonderful” a cigarette would be at that time. How conveniently I forget the breathlessness, the stink, the ash, the caughing, the phlegm, and even the chest pain, yet I catch myself romanticising a cancer stick!
I have to heartily thank Joel Spitzer for his wonderful site: whyquit.com, as all I do is go there and read, and look at those disgusting pictures and that would set me straight again!
Have a look at whyquit.com you might find it helpful too!
Good luck, we BOTH need it!