burning match on a black background

A Year Free From Smoking 

I quit smoking in THE worst way possible. But I quit…

It was an easy adjustment, at first. Its really simple to not smoke when you still are having a hard time breathing. But as I healed and had less trouble with life in general, the habits I had when I was a smoker were annoying.

I actually miss some parts of being a smoker – the chats with the other smokers, which were extremely productive, or the having an extra 5 minutes alone when you needed it. I soothed a lot of my anxiety smoking, I could re-direct the stress somewhere else. I can’t any more and now I need to face it on a regular basis.

I used to get up and walk around every hour or so to go smoke. Now, because I don’t have the craving or urge, I sometimes will sit for hours without moving and that makes me stiff and sore. I had to set a timer at first, now I have one of those health tracking watches that buzzes if I don’t move after a certain length of time, which is really helpful.

After dinner, I still feel like I need to do something, like I forgot a task on my to-do list.

Its been a while and I’m adjusting but I never thought not smoking would be so easy and difficult at the same time. I quit cold turkey at one point but it was difficult, a force of will, really. It flew right out the window when we move to Los Angeles and I was under tremendous stress.

The US Department of Health and Human Services has a great website to help you quit smoking…if you are really set to quit. I have to say that deciding to quit cold turnkey made it easier for me the last time, it just didn’t stick. I now have health directives that say I can’t smoke, even if I wanted to.

Have you quit? How hard was it for you?