48 hours

Tuesday morning, 10:21.This morning was particularly bad: I was that dizzy that I  hardly could reach the bathroom. Tried several times to wake up without success.  Finally I got out of the house  and stoped at the backery next corner for a coffee.Something to stop  the dizziness.  Bad decision. People are smoking here. The smell made me even more sick . I want to puke .The hands started to shake again, the head ache increased . Last night I discovered that adrenaline helps a lot , to the point that I forgot about smoking for a while. Ok I'll get the bike and racing through the fields should make me feel better. I  never heard someone dying in the process of quiting smoking. With all my bad luck , still I cant be the first one :) just few more days !!! And then should be easier !!At least that' s what they say !

Nonsense

8:54 pm. Still Monday. Managed to sleep one hour, but no more. Woke up because I was dreaming that I was smoking. Woke up with a feeling of great desperation combined with emptiness. Never felt more alone in my whole life. The cigarettes, they were always there. Didn't matter  what time it was, what day, what I was doing before...they were always with me.  Now I feel this big empty hole inside.  Loneliness combined with fear gives this strange taste of terror and a feeling that  nothing makes any sense any more.   Is just the nicotine playing tricks on me or this would be from now on my life?   I am terrified.  Must be a trick, so many people are not smoking and are apparently happy!
 I can't stay home anymore, everything here reminds me of the "good" moments when I could light that cigarette, and everything was OK.  Now nothing is OK; everything falls apart!!. I should go back to the institute and work. Keep my brain busy. Sleep is not an option. Not now!

4:52 pm ; I have to go away, I have to run as far as possible; the office is too small, every single noise is   driving me crazy; the hand started shaking, and  I feel the unstoppable need to break something and to scream ;   I should go home, at least there I can break everything; I know that  it will be even worse home, but at least there is the cold shower; and I can cry there ! The pressure inside the head is increasing as well ; I can't think clearly anymore ; Unbelievable,  all these just because of cigarettes!!!  I don't know how it will end , but I don't want to smoke, that's what I know for sure ; I'll break a hand , the head , anything else, but I don't want to smoke. I am out of here; one hour with the bike on the fields should calm me down a bit;

Almost 30 hours

1:12 pm , still Monday. Time is passing so slow; after lunch I  had one of the crisis.  But I am not sure anyone who didn't pass through these moments can understand what a crisis means.  How does it feel exactly? Well , first,  there is this rush through your whole body which gives you shivering and a  need of smashing anything in your way. I mean, ANYTHING! Then there is the fact that your mind is foggy , you can't concentrate whatsoever, everything you see or think is that you NEED  TO  LIGHT a cigarette.  Then you are dizzy,  sometimes  at the edge of fainting . And your state of mind oscillates from depression to hope in   a timescale of minutes!
 There are  moments when I am sure that I can't take it anymore ; but then again what  is the worse that can happen ? Die from one of these crisis? small probability :) I wish it was possible to go to sleep and wake up in one month when all the nicotine would have gone away.

Ok, I need to concentrate somehow!!! Some yoga techniques would have been  very helpful right now !

Monday(officially) the first day

8:20 am , Monday, April 29.   Today is officially the first day  as a "non-smoker" and  approximately 20 h since the last cigarette.  This morning  was not as bad as I expected. I woke up like usual, did all the  routine things with a small exception: I did not smoke. ( on a normal day I would have smoked at least 6 cigarettes since I woke up  until now).  Even so I was still able to leave the house, take the bus and get to my office. In the bus was a bit tough, I could smell all the smokers there and I was a bit sick,  the sensation of suffocation. Tomorrow I'll take the bike !!! All the way to here,  I could see everywhere smokers and lighted cigarettes:  they were everywhere: suddenly everyone started to smoke??!!
 Yesterday I found out a pretty good solution to make easier the crisis: cold shower and then do crunches until totally exhausted.  Now I have to find a solution for the institute. Up to now is pretty OK;   I just hope I won't meet  my supervisor today !!!
    I worked pretty hard to get hooked on cigarettes at the times when I was a stupid  teenager (they were horrible at the beginning and they were making me so sick) now I have to work double as hard to get rid of them !!
    So smile, suffer and get cured ! In this case really the time  is my  friend.  I know that with every hour that is gone it is getting  better as the nicotine will slowly leave my body.
"Smile, tomorrow will be a better day"--- in this situation is really true !!

First hours

Last cigarette was at 10 am  in the morning even if oficially I will stop starting  tomorrow . Is 4:20 pm and I already started shacking. My head hurts, I am very very dizzy  and I feel stomach sick also. I started looking for a cigarette but is nothing around. I will go back to bed and try to calm the little monster in the stomach that craves  nicotine. I wont give give up , he wont have any cigarette anymore.I feel the need to cry so I stop writing for now. The situation is too bad out here. Hopefully calmer periods will come !!

So, it is official now: I'll STOP smoking; I don't know how I'll do it, but I'll do it ! So this blog will be just a collection of desperate  random thoughts; It was born after one of the many many  discussions I had about quitting smoking ; appeared at that point as a pretty good idea, now doesn't look like it anymore, but I have to try to write exactly how I feel just to release the tension inside which was always resulting in lighting one cigarette;
  So quit smoking...it is indeed the biggest challenge up to now; getting into graduate school was very easy comparing to stop smoking ; Just the idea of not being able to light a cigarette is terrifying ; the idea that Monday morning I'll wake up as usual, I'll make some coffee and then ...I will not smoke (usually I am smoking 3-4 cigarettes with the morning coffee).
Now  I am thinking back when did I start smoking. I remember perfect the moment as  it was yesterday: it was in a regional train with my that time boyfriend who was a smoker: I just wanted to know why he smokes; the first cigarette was more than horrible, was disgusting. I remember telling him that he must be crazy because he smokes.  I remember times when I was so angry at him that he spent the last money we had on cigarettes; simply I was not able to understand how he could do that. Unfortunately now I do.
 Short time after that, my  rebellion teenager moments started and because I choose the way of being the bad kid, smoking was a prerequisite. My family had a stash of cigarettes (it was used  before as "presents"  for doctors in the communism times, as no one in the family smoked). So I had a very  "good" time enjoying the old long  Kent they had; a single cigarette was enough to make me dizzy for few good moments.  I was 16-17 at that time I think.  Was really funny the moment when my mother found out I was smoking, because after one of our usual fights, simply I didn't care anymore and I lighted a cigarette in front of her. The hell broke loose and I was having fun ! Now, after almost 10 years,  I understand why my father told me once that he wishes me to have a kid  like me !
    Anyhow, soon after  I started smoking, a cigarette per day turned in a few and in one year I was smoking more than a pack per day. At the beginning of my first year of undergraduate, I was even smoking 2 packs per day. This until the Christmas that year when I totally stopped. I stopped due to my new boyfriend who was a non-smoker. From two packs per day I went to not smoking at all (again extremes). This worked for two-three years. Then slowly ( hiding from my bf) I started smoking again.  At that time I was Erasmus in Bonn and because of all the stress of the new world, I found peace again in cigarettes.  Slowly, but sure, I got hooked up again.  I felt bad because mostly I was lying that I am not smoking. In 2009 came the break up and then I went totally back to smoking one pack per day. I didn't care anymore, I didn't have to hide it ! Well, all fine since then , but still even if no boyfriend  or parents were around to tell me that I should not smoke I still felt bad from time to time.
And  here we are, in 2013,  and I am here writing  about stopping smoking. Why? Because finally I found some equilibrium in my life, I am happy with what I am doing, I succeeded doing some other big changes and smoking is the only thing that bothers me now. I have to stop. I will stop because I want it , not because someone else wants it.  I know that this will be the hardest thing I had to do up to now, but doesn't matter. I  know I can do  it! I have to do it !!! I know I failed several times up to know, but this time is THE TIME when I will succeed! I know that next week I will feel different, all I will think about is a cigarette, but with some help and understanding from friends  I will  hopefully manage it. And besides, this time  I have this spot here where  I can scream, cry but... not smoke :)