Quitting Smoking: Days 1 & 2
For you smokers out there, or better yet, for you former smokers who have now quit, and quit for good, how hard were days 1 and 2? In a moment, I’ll get to mine, but I’m curious, I would think that the first day would be really hard, and then the 2nd even harder, and I would expect it to be that way for a few weeks, and then start coming back down the other way until its just easy. But, I’ve never tried before, so I don’t really know. So if you’ve dealt with this, I’d love to hear your comments, but for now, on to my first two days.
Day One
I thought day 1 would be difficult for a number of reasons. First and foremost, people talk about the nicotine cravings, and honestly, even as a smoker, I don’t know what they hell they are talking about, because even when I smoked, and sometimes it was a pack a day or more, I never fealt like I had to smoke because my body needed it. Generally I smoked as part of a routine, boredom, or just for the enjoyment of having a relaxing smoke. On day one, I did NOT have this. The other major thing I really worried about was routine, especially at work. At work, I have a routine for the first half of my day, and it does change mildly just from the day to day issues, but generally its the same, and generally I smoked 7 Cigarettes during that morning routine from roughly 6am-Noon, and sometimes and 8th that would be smoked on the way to work, generally if I was running late, generally every day. Hey, its hard to get to work at 6am everyday! Anyway, the first day this was my biggest issue, and even it was almost a non-issue. There were two points where I normally would go smoke that I just wanted to go smoke. So I decided to go through the routine of it, but without the actual smoke. After work it was smooth sailing till bedtime, when I wanted to go sit on the porch and just enjoy and evening smoke, but I resisted the urge and just went to bed. Day 1, over, Day 1, a lot easier than I would have thought.
Day Two
If Day 1 was easy, Day 2 was a breeze. I didn’t want to smoke hardly at all, just once when this ridiculous woman shouted at me about something that was her own stupidity and I wanted to strangle her and then have a smoke over her dead body. But alas, I did neither of the two, and clearly was better off. I still have 6 more hours to go on day 2, but I don’t foresee any major issues.
One other thing I have noticed, especially on day 1, is I have had a few headaches, but I don’t know if thats from nicotine withdrawal or being sick, cause I’ve been trying to get over being sick and taking antibiotics and sinus medicine and all that junk, so who knows.
Anyway, two days in, and its all gravy. I imagine, at some point, it will get harder.
Funny thing. I went a full week, smoked 1 cigarette, never feeling like I was craving them at all. After one week, I missed the casual side of smoking, and picked up a couple packs of Camel Mellows. I did step down from menthols to a nice easy smooth mellow cigarette.
I will quit for good when the time is right, but I just didn’t feel like the time was right. But having gone a week with no cravings like you always hear people talking about, I feel like when I truly do want to quit, I’ll be able to.