Post by judyb on Aug 26, 2005 13:33:23 GMT -5
I'm a newbie just about to click past 4000 cigarettes not smoked. I’ve been trying to imagine
4000 cigarettes lying side by side and wondering how much space it would take. I've also been
wondering how 4000 cigarettes would look after hitting them with a fire hose. 4000 butts sure
seems like a lot of smoking that I haven’t done. Well, perhaps 4000 aren’t that many in
comparison to the 400,000 plus I have smoked. 38 years of smoking is a bunch compared to
the 4 + months I’ve been quit. But what the heck, I had to start somewhere.
During the first week or two of not smoking, I experienced an energy that I hadn’t known in
many, many years. It was a nervous energy, probably pure adrenaline, but it was energy just
the same. During that period, emotions were helter skelter and most of my time was spent
wondering, "what next?" I was running scared, afraid the nicobeast would sneak up on me and
force cigarette smoke down my throat. In the beginning, every minute of each day was spent
simply existing. It was a panic existence. Where do I run? Where do I hide? How am I going to
get through this? What do I do now? Am I nuts? Trying to keep the lid on was quite a task.
By the end of the first month, rather than feeling like a million bucks, I felt like a huge pile of
%^#$ . And by the way, cigarettes were no longer the only thing on my mind. In addition to
thinking about smokes, I was beginning to wonder how many pounds I would gain. Was the
scale about to register "tilt". God! Could all of this really be the result of smoking those &*))((*&^
cigarettes? Suddenly, I looked at the calendar and I’ll be d**ned if I hadn’t made it through 2
months of being buttless.
Even after two months, anxious moments and nervous twitches were still in abundance, but
other things were beginning to seep into my brain. It seemed as though out of the blue that new
interests, new goals and ideas seemed to pop up at every turn. A sense of peace had begun to
take over my "on the edge, ready to pounce, nervous as hell existence". I began to feel a calm
that felt pretty good. I wasn’t always in a hurry to do what ever was on the agenda at the
moment.
There is no denying that quitting smoking had much to do with this new sense of peace.
Perhaps this new calm has everything to do with quitting smoking. The air is fresher, the colors
are more brilliant and bright, the sensation brought about by being outdoors is simply
awesome. How could quitting smoking bring such feelings to the surface? It is mind boggling. I
am able to look at and hold my grand children without wondering if I am going to be around
when they begin school, start dating, get married. In retrospect, the longer I only "thought"
about quitting smoking and as the months and years began to pile up, I had subconsciously
begun to prepare myself for the day when my doctor would finally say, "I have some bad news".
I really worried about chest x-rays. I saw what lung cancer did to my father. I can’t even
imagine how he felt when his doctor told him to get his affairs in order. The man didn’t have a
chance. He was dead in four months. Though I’m certainly not out of the woods, there is a
sense of relief that I won’t be quite as anxious about the next visit to the MD.
Cigarette smoking had numbed my senses to the point where I had forgotten many of the things
that make life so precious. Now that I’m in the process of regaining some of my senses, I want
to thank Al, Judy, Robyn, Sagitelle, Paula, Dot, Ben, Kathleen, Jamava, and all the other veterans
of this site who have helped me get this far. To all other newbies like me, hang in there, there is
life after smoking.
Bubb
2/2000
