This is an example of a day of mine.
This day can repeat itself for weeks if it wants to. This is honestly what I went through on a daily basis.
Can you relate?
Sometimes I would throw my cigarettes out the night before in a burst of anger, furious that I was still a smoker.
I hated myself and the fact I was not in control of anything, but cigarettes were.
I’d even take out all the garbage that might have any cigarette butts in them.
Usually, I could make it all the way through my lunch shift with no problem, because I was in the correct mindset to begin with.
But as soon as I got off work, the physical withdrawal and the crazy mind games would be too much for me to handle, so I caved in.
And I would get mad at myself for doing so.
But then I would think “I’ll just smoke a couple now and throw the rest away when I get home.”
Sometimes I would even crush the pack I just bought a few minutes ago, in an attempt to finally just quit!
Of course I would smoke one last cigarette and THEN crush the pack before getting on the bus to go home.
When I got home, and after a couple hours, the physical withdrawal came back full force.
Since I had nothing to do for the rest of the night, which is foolish, the crazy mind games were at the forefront of my thoughts.
It’s insane the way your mind plays tricks on you, making you believe you can’t last another moment without another cigarette.
It convinces you to smoke tonight and quit tomorrow beyond all reasonable doubt.
In a nutshell, I would end up buying another pack. That’s two packs in one day and it’s not even dinner time yet.
I wasn’t smoking them all, no, but I wasn’t quitting completely, either. I was trying to quit smoking, but I wasn’t doing a very good job.
It was getting the best of me.
There were dozens and dozens of times I would play out this scenario of buying packs and throwing them away minutes later.
It happened almost on a daily basis. What a waste of money!
There were even times I would buy that second pack, smoke three or four in a row, and then get disgusted at myself for being a smoker again.
You know what I would do then?
That’s right, I would get that pack wet and throw them away in a fit of anger.
“NO MORE SMOKING!” I would tell myself.
Sadly, this is not the way to quit smoking, as I would unfortunately buy another pack later on that night before I went to bed.
I would convince myself “you already smoked today, so you might as well smoke the rest of the night. You can quit tomorrow.”
How awful is that?
That’s exactly what I would tell myself each and every night.
It became my daily routine. What a horrible way of life!
I wasn’t thinking about my job, or a potential career, or a relationship, or saving money to buy a car, or cleaning the house, or any of that stuff that normal people do.
I was only thinking about cigarettes, and how much I wanted to quit, but yet how incredibly addicted I was. It’s insane to think about.
This was everyday of my life. These were the thoughts that dominated my thinking pattern.
I was nothing more than a shell of a human being, unable to do anything else besides think about cigarettes.
Can you relate?
Is this what YOUR life is like? Because if it is, you are in trouble.
hello i got back again and i was smoke-free for 5 years. I feel disgusted the cravings are unbearable. What should i do?
Did you finally quit? I thought I was crazy and that there couldn’t be anyone out there doing what I have been doing. You have described my pattern of behavior exactly. How did you overcome this, if you did?
Yes, I’m almost 2 years of no smoking. I switched to vaping and weened down to nothing from there. It was much easier that way than going cold turkey from cigarettes all together.