I was going to write about Nicotine Replacement Therapy today but I thought that as I have now completed 7 days of my quit journey that perhaps an overview of my week might be more appropriate.
I quit on Monday and I felt really motivated to get it done. I had told a few people on Friday that I was going to go for it but didn’t want to share it too widely until a few days after I had stared. I had a really bad chest over that weekend and struggled to breath at times and knew that enough was enough. Monday wasn’t so bad. I craved at the normal times that I would have been smoking and the knotting, sicky feeling of the cravings was almost painful but I had good support from my boss and I made it – I even made it to an intense boot-camp style High intensity impact training session – that was hard!
Tuesday and Wednesday were standard work days and the cravings got more intense. I know I was snapping at my boyfriend and I hate that but don’t know how to control it. He doesn’t know I’m quitting because he didn’t know I was smoking so it’s difficult. The cravings were more and more intense but I ate nicotine lozenges, used patches and kept going. On Wednesday I even shared the fact that I was quitting with the rest of my colleagues and they have, overall, been quite supportive.
By the time Thursday came along, I was ok but the thoughts of “why am I doing this?” and “why can he/she smoke and I can’t?” were going through my mind. I find these really difficult to deal with and think that as the cravings subside, these will be the most difficult thing to manage. I found that the mini lozenges seem to be the best thing this time around. My breathing was already so much better by Thursday though and that really helped. I did a Zumba class and hardly wheezed!
On Friday I went to a conference that was four and a half hours away by train and was in general, with non-smokers so the journey was not too bad – I still needed my lozenges though. When we arrived at the conference there was the issue of people I smoked with, who weren’t aware I had quite, asking me if I wanted to go and smoke with them. I said no and felt proud. The trip lasted until last night and, as I wrote about how useful it was yesterday, I won’t bore you with it again.
Tonight I have another HIIT class and hope it will be ok – I have been quit for over a week now so it should be better. I also have a session with Stop Smoking Wales and should get some free NRT – I’ll talk about NRT tomorrow. Thanks for reading and good luck with your own quits!
