I woke up at 6am after having a dream about having Beiber Fever. o_O I barely know who the kid is!

Today is Day 6 of no smoking and I’m starting to crawl down from the ceiling. They say it takes 3 days for the nicotine to leave your system, but 7 days for your body to stop craving it, so I’m almost there. And from there, it takes about 3 weeks to change the actual habit of smoking, for example, not thinking “oh I should have a smoke” after you finish a meal or “it’s time for a smoke” when you wake up or whatever your smoking times and triggers are.

My lungs feel infinitely better. A huge part of the reason I wanted to quit was that I was developing asthma, which I haven’t had an issue with since I was a kid and it seemed illogical to go to the doctor and ask for an rx of Ventolin instead of just quitting. Another reason was because I had some wicked nicotine stains on my index and middle fingers that would stare back at me if I were writing or painting and I was really embarrassed by that. The only cure for nicotine staining is to quit, so with much reluctance, that’s what I did.

I backslid on Thursday night and made Blake go buy me a pack. I ended up smoking one cigarette and even though I’d only been smoke-free for a day & a half, the taste and practice already seemed foreign to me and I didn’t enjoy it. About an hour later, I had another cigarette but I could only smoke half of it before I felt guilty and sick, so I put it out and as I explained to Blake, I had a decision to make right then and there.

Y’see, people aren’t born knowing how to smoke. It’s something you have to learn, you have to teach yourself. So my decision at that point on Thursday night was that I could re-teach myself to smoke and make another attempt at quitting later on, or I could continue with my progress and get rid of the rest of the pack, which is what I opted for.

Then on Saturday night I backslid again and made Blake buy me a pack, but I only had 3 or 4 drags of the first cigarette in the pack before I realized how retarded I was being. I no longer found smoking something enjoyable, so what was the point of re-teaching myself to smoke just to make myself miserable with withdrawal once that pack was gone, all over again? So I took that pack, broke all of the cigarettes and flushed them down the toilet. I haven’t really felt like smoking since, except for what I call “habit times”, such as when you first wake up or after meals (or in my case, while painting or writing – I had myself convinced that smoking made my thoughts clearer, which is of course bullshit).

If it takes 3 days for the nicotine to leave your system, then I would make it 2 days, then my body would freak out and panic and that’s when I would break down and buy cigarettes. Once I got over that 3 day hump, it seems I’ve been more or less okay.

I haven’t done anything creative since I began the quitting process because I’m trying to avoid triggers and painting is definitely one of them, but I feel confident enough in being over the physical addiction that I’ll be strong enough to overcome the psychological addiction and I plan on starting two new girls today.

So that’s where I’m at right now.