Reward Yourself With Money Saved From Quitting

When I initially decided to stop smoking, one of the major factors was the money that I could save. Here in New Jersey, it's well over six dollars a pack. Figuring myself at a little over a pack a day, that's an easy 50 bucks weekly, two hundred a month.

If you're giving up cigarettes, or have given them up, you've surely considered the money spent over the years. What are you doing with yours? Something, I hope.

I keep mine tucked away, and every once in awhile it's a nice bonus to have it there for impulse spending. Depending on circumstances, a person could easily use that cash to go out to dinner or have some kind of a night on the town every couple of weeks.

Maybe you want a copy of Guitar Hero, or your own domain name (just so you know, it's uber-geeky to have your own name registered as a dot com, I think I'm gonna go for it). Hell, for that kind of money, you can probably make payments on a nice entry level car. When I say nice, I mean that it's this year's model, not necessarily nice as in power windows and air conditioning.

I guess it's been about nine days quit for me today, and I didn't have any really bad cravings over the weekend consciously, but I was halfway between insomniac and inconsolable most of yesterday. Managed to sleep like a rock overnight, and today is much better.

I'm taking myself camping this coming weekend with my quit money, what are you doing with yours?

Survived First 24 Hours Without Smoking

Once again, I have joined the ranks of nonsmokers. The first day of quitting smoking, as anticipated, was not very bad at all. I have my sunflower seeds to help me with cravings, and they have been doing their job wonderfully, as they did last time I quit smoking.

There's not much else to report, as Sunday is typically a day of R&R for me. I intend to do a little research in order to find out what it is about sunflower seeds that makes them such good help with eliminating the nicotine cravings. I'll let everybody know tomorrow what I'm able to find out, if anything.

Boredom Continues To Be My Enemy

Saturday night went well. We got out to the artsy-fartsy district and had some expensive dinner and drinks, after which we checked out the Kodo drummers. Very cool show. Later on some more fattening up, this time with half-price Applebees munchies and tall glasses of beer. Don't get me wrong, I am the opposite of an Applebees fan, but those nachos are so nacho-ey and when you tell them you want your wings hot, you get your wings hot.

The cool thing was when most of our group went outside to smoke (you can't smoke inside public places here in Jersey, except in limited areas of the casinos), I got to hang in the nice heated atrium and wonder if it was as cold out there as it looked. Turned out it was, and that was also the only time I had any cause to think about smoking. It wasn't because I wanted any part of it, either.

Most of Sunday though, and to a slightly lesser extent today, I have been finding myself so damn bored! These are the times when I used to smoke cigarette after cigarette. I'm still not having a lot of cravings though, which is great, a reminder that I am really doing a good job here.

I have noticed that I've been quite the miserable prick though. Then when I do have even a little bit of a craving, you want to talk about a grumpy son of a....

I actually am lightening up some even as I type this, it gives me a chance to laugh at myself, despite my reputation for not being all that funny. That's good, since the reason for this blog's existence in the first place is to be my own little space to vent and get this kind of crap out of my system. Another small success. Wow, I'm awesome!

Still Alive After Quitting Smoking 14 Days Ago

It's been a rough couple weeks, but today marks the fourteen day anniversary of the day I stopped smoking cold turkey. It's been a rough couple of weeks, with days both good and difficult, but I am finally beginning to feel like I am really meeting with some measurable success as someone who has quit smoking.

There are no more cravings whatsoever first thing when I wake up, and the overall amount of cravings I've been having on a daily basis that I consider significant is low, perhaps one or two a day. After dinner I still almost always think about a cigarette.

I've been told that it will probably take from two to four months to become very, very comfortable as a non smoker. I have heard wildly different amounts of times stated as to how long it will take until the possibility of smoking will become completely foreign. These range from six or eight months to a year or two to probably never.

I guess time will just have to tell, but for now I'm celebrating.

We're going out on a triple date to dinner and a show tonight, followed by question marks (???). The kids are sleeping out, so who knows what could happen?

I might not be able to catch up again until Monday, so enjoy the weekend.

Apples Do Nothing For Cigarette Cravings

Note to self: The doctor still hasn't showed up yet though, so that old adage may still hold true.

I haven't touched a cigarette in five and a half full days (I feel like one of the kids saying that, the six and a half year old in particular). As of five minutes ago, I weigh exactly the same as I did last weekend, which means I'm mostly keeping myself from eating a bunch of garbage to control cravings.

For some reason or another, I just found myself thinking about a cigarette. As I have been doing in these situations, I tried something new, an apple this time.

While I am satisfied that the doctor will likely not be making any house calls this day, a big chug of flavored seltzer water (it's black cherry right now) is far higher on the it fights cravings scale than the apple, which sits at zero.