Hi Neen!
We are close together in our quits, you are a day ahead of me. I have been on and off this site for 3 years with my attempts to stop smoking. The reason for this is because I always just wanted one, for closure, to say goodbye, for some fantastic reason that I would come up with. I must have done it 12 or more times, stop for a few days or weeks and then have 'one'. I was a slow learner!
What happened with me was, I'd have that nagging, the craving and a tightness in my chest that I just knew that I needed a cigarette. I'd fight the craves as long as I could sometimes, and other times I gave in immediately because I knew I would eventually. I would have one, it was ok, didn't really do much for me, I wasn't particularly happy about the fact that I was smoking. Then, I'd look at my quit meter and it wasn't the same, I knew that I haven't been smoke free for 9/10 days and that added to the nagging. Everytime I had one, I was back to smoking a pack a day within a few days of the first 'one'.
The nicotine is out of your system at this stage. It is purely psychological. By smoking, you just put more nicotine back into your system which then awakens the beast and it gets hard- if you thought the nagging was bad before just wait till you igtnite that spark again. It will hold onto you for dear life but you just have to let it go, and walk away.
The crazy thing, and this is seriously mad, I felt guilty for betraying the cigarettes, my friends, when I quit in the past. Very odd!
I have found the last two days to be the most difficult and I'm not sure why. The after dinner smoke is still a killer! But my house is absoluetly spotless! I still haven't gotten my head around the concept that I can never have another cigarette, ever, and that really does scare me at the moment. But i know that I used it as a crutch to deal with things that I find stressful or upsetting and thats when I have the strongest cravings, so I'm interested to see what emotions I'm actually blocking up. If I can learn to handle my emotions, I can handle the cravings and I will become a stronger, more confident person in the process.
I'm ranting on now but trust me, saying goodbye to cigarettes by smoking a cigarette, is not the path you want to start walking down because you will just keep going around and around and around in a vicious circle. Please take my word for it, I did it for three years and I'm praying that I won't be so stupid this time round!
My Milage:My Quit Date: 5/26/2008
Smoke-Free Days: 10
Cigarettes Not Smoked: 230
Amount Saved: �86.83
Life Gained:Days: 0
Hrs: 17
Mins: 7
Seconds: 22