Let me rephrase that. I tumbled-head-over-heels-with-no-end-in-sight-and-no-hope-of-salvation-off the no-smoking bandwagon last night. I work with community theatre in my spare time. Call it a total stereo-type, but theatre people smoke. It's not attractive and it harms our bodies which is our instrument and for the really good or lucky theatre folk, the way they make money, but we do it. I shared two cigarettes, and sorta smoked one. Not completely horrible, right? I mean not good by any means...but not the end of the world...just a slight slip off the edge of the bandwagon.
Then it gets worse. After rehearsal I went over to a friend's house for Margaritta's. Yum. And the friend has a smoking room and two of the three other folks there are smokers. That's it...I'm hosed! Not a chance in Hades. I smoked around 10 cigarettes. That's half a pack in about 5 hours. That is definitely not the actions of a non-smoker.
My information from 1-800-QUIT-NOW tried to warn me about having slip ups. I think last night was a little more than a slip up...I think maybe it was a full on backslide. lol.
But the truth is, I'm not back to square one by a long shot. I went just about 24 hours yesterday before that first cigarette. That's longer than I went the day before...maybe by only a couple of hours, but still longer. And I learned several other things:
- There is a difference in a craving and smoking because it's a habbit. At 7:00 last night right before I finally caved and had a cigarette, I was having a craving. I was bouncing around, slightly irritatid--my body just felt different. As soon as I had nicotine in me, I immediately calmed down. Then later that night, when I was at my buddy's house, the two smoking buddies would pick up a cigarette and so would I. Not because I was craving one, but because they were smoking and I always smoked at the same time other smokers who I was with smoked. My body didn't physically need the nicotine and what-not, it's just what I always do.
- Gunk is gross. My lungs hate me...they are currently drawing up a petition for the rest of my body to sign. Mostly it just seemed harder to breathe driving home last night. And today...it feels like my head and my lungs are full of goo. yuck!
- The effects of smoking sneak up on you. I used to hear people who had quit smoking talk about how much better they could taste things, and how much better they could breathe. I always thought, as a smoker, I can breathe fine and everything tastes fine...those aren't reasons for me to quit. I don't fall into the catagory of people who can't breathe or taste anything. Now, I completely see what has happened. Because smoking gradually takes your senses...like your sense of taste and smell, you don't realize anything is missing. It's because you don't start smoking and feel fine and then one morning wake up with only 50% lung capacity, no sense of smell or taste, you don't know what your missing. I'm not saying that it happens to everyone, and that the difference is like the next best thing to sliced bread, but I can see where folks are coming from now. I was jamming out to the radio to keep from smoking in my car. I was getting pretty good and keeping up with whoever was on, until last night. Where did my voice go? Oh, that's right. Cigarettes hurt it.
- You gotta have a plan. I knew that I would be tempted to smoke last night, even before I went to my buddy's house for drinks. I just figured I would be strong enough to resist. Um....not so much. :) I need a new plan other than that.
- You're only resisting a cigarette away from being a non-smoker again. I didn't smoke on the way home from my buddy's house. It's a long drive...probably about 30 to 45 mins. Before I would have had at least two or three, but last night I made a conscious decision not to smoke on the way home. I'm on my way back to being a non-smoker.
- Falling off the wagon is ok, but giving up is not. I think it doesn't mean I'm not serious about quitting, or that I can't quit if I smoke in those moments when it just gets to be too much--as long as I don't give up trying to quit. As long as I try to make it longer and longer since that last time I slipped. As long as the next time I'm faced with a simular situation I do everything I can to not smoke at all, but if I do smoke, I smoke fewer cigarettes.
So that's where I am on this journey. Today I am grumpy and tired...I was up way too late last night. But I'm hanging in there. I haven't smoked yet today and today is all I can do anything about. :)