The big catch up!

Oy! Where the hell was I?

Sorry about that. I was on "vacation" helping my dad out after his back surgery ad now I'm even further behind.

I wanted to catch up a couple days at a time so new quitters would have a kind of daily-ish reference but I feel like I'm too far behind now. So I am going to catch everything up in this last "catch up" post and starting tomorrow I will be in real time posting.

The highlights for no smoking days 10-25:
(today is day 32 of chantix but I probably will start keeping weekly instead of daily track of that- currently in week 5)

Ok in the last 15 days I have taken 2 puffs off of a friend's cigarette(again). I was drinking and having cravings, decided to give in- just to "prove to myself it's still nasty". It was. Note to self: maybe no more drinking until you've been quit longer.

I'm still having some blah days every now and then.

I've gained 3 &1/2 lbs.
I've started back at the gym. (after initially being too tired to bother)
I've found out that not only do I feel better after a workout, I have less craves on those days.

I've been taking my a.m. pill around 8 and the p.m. pill around 3/4. I've noticed that if I forget my pm pill, I start getting cravings around 7/8ish. If I take my pill that late I have some trouble sleeping. So if I forget my afternoon pill I just skip it till the next morning. I've noticed that besides a few cravings I don't miss the pm pill if I forget it.

I'm thinking about only taking 1 pill a day. 1/2 a pill at my usual times.
I did that this morning and so far I haven't had anymore cravings on 1/2 pill than I have on a whole one.

I spent a week at my dad's house without smoking, even though he smokes like a chimney. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be- but it was still hard. I thought about smoking many times. I'm glad I didn't.
Also- my clothes smelled really bad. even though I washed them before I came home, I had to wash them again.
I'm glad I don't smell like an ashtray anymore.

I'm not a good flyer (not good is a way under-exaggeration. think valium). I think getting to and from my dad's house was te most stress I've had to deal with since I quit smoking.
On my way home my connecting flight was changed adding another 2 hours to my layover. I was pissed because they never informed me when I picked up my tickets that there was a change. I was really pissed because I had taken a xanax expecting to be on a plane when it kicked in and I passed out. Thankfully I did not pass out. I was very stressed though.

I asked the ticket guy if he knew of anywhere I could buy some cigarettes. He didn't. That pissed me off more.
I realized that I was thinking about and planning my xanax consumption so much that i had forgotten to take my chantix. A little while later I was ok again.

That's about it folks. The summation of the last 2 weeks.

As for today, I have 1 pill left in this pack. I need to either call in the refill or decide to suck it up and just be quit on my own.
Sometimes I feel like I don't own this quit because I'm taking the chantix- therefore were I not taking it I might not be quit. Yes I know, that's crazy talk, but sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't feel better about myself if I could be quit without the chantix crutch.

I let you know what I decided to do tomorrow.