I thought I'd talk more about my week, it's been ****ty, I feel ****ty, I just want to lay in bed and listen to Swans.

So, I'm seeing Titus Andronicus tonight, and I'm really excited.

THE ENEMY IS EVERYWHERE

God damn anyone that says a kind word.

An exciting plan, Tea Supremacist! I hope it goes more smoothly than you predict. An advantage of quitting all at once may be that you'll combine all the awful feelings together at one time, so you'll reduce the total length of time you feel crappy.

Since you're drinking decaf tea, is there something you can use besides cigarettes to create a new variation of the smoking habit? For example, instead of a cigarette you could have decaf tea and...pretzel sticks? Perhaps you can become a mini-pretzel stick baton twirler to give your fingers something to do. ;) Would that help, or is it advised to just change habits entirely so that you do nothing that triggers the urge for things you crave (caffeine, nicotine)?

Please give updates, if you want to. I've often wondered what withdrawal feels like and would like to hear about it. It must be hard, since people have such a difficult time quitting...but they *do* quit, so it can be done. I knew about headaches and jitters, but I didn't realize that stopping smoking can make someone feel like vomiting. I imagine you just have to say to yourself, "I'm going to feel awful, I'm going to hate it, and I'm going to be grumpy as hell," but then you remind yourself this WILL pass, this WILL pass. Because it will. (That was supposed to be a little pep talk.)

Oh! One more question about your day: since you aren't drinking caffeinated builder's tea anymore, have you branched out into herbal flavors yet? Like some nice mint tea?

http://www.howtoremedyheartburn.com/...herbal-tea.jpg

My day was less traumatic than yours probably has been, though I did spend 5 hours out in a hot corn field tagging plants and sampling leaves for later DNA extractions. While doing that you kind of feel mild hopelessnes and despair, because it feels like it will never end. Tonight the plan will be a nice break from field work: roller skating at the rink with a childhood friend and her kids.

Do you think stopping the habit is just as difficult, if not the most difficult thing about quitting smoking? For me, i really believe this to be the case. Stopping the nicotine craving is just one small part of it.

Actually, I have a bag of carrot and celery sticks here and various dips and weirdly enough it seems to be working quite well as a substitute for a cigarette and ashtray. But, it's only been less than a day so we'll see how long that works for. I'll be pretty miserable, but I've made up my mind, I've got a bigger picture to look at now so it's making it all a bit easier, actually having a good reason other than the usual "Oh, it's to save money" or whatever. Those excuses never worked for me cos I would just spunk my cash on something completely unproductive anyway :D

As for builders tea - you can get de-caff substitutes which actually aren't that bad. Giving up 'proper' tea is not an option for me! Saying that, I have also got a really nice raspberry fruity tea which is ok.

Perhaps I should make my own journal on quitting the only vices I have left in my life!

Yeah, it's definately the habit itself more than the nicotine. I really like habit and routine (almost obsessively so) so it's going to be quite difficult to change that.

I spent the day walking around a hot shopping mall in pursuit of an experimental metal album, in hopes that the store I'd asked to order a copy had gotten it yet.
They didn't.
But I still got a Gary Numan CD so I'm happy. ^_^

Oh, yes, please do make a quitting thread on MB! That could be really useful to a lot of people, and a nice documentation of the experience for yourself.

I know of two women who quit smoking...and in both cases their hopes to have a baby were the reason. They both succeeded in quitting. And they both now have children and have never returned to smoking. So it all ended up well for everyone (except the cigarette manufacturers).

That raspberry fruity tea sounds lovely! Mmm. Fragrant, warm. I like adding a little frozen rice cream (like ice cream, but made with rice) to the top of herbal tea, because it makes it creamy and sweet.

I have little else to do with my time, so documenting it could well be interesting... If only for myself :laughing:

And I must find some of this rice cream!!

Admittedly, part of the reason I'm doing it is the same reason as your friends, also there have been a few health scares in the family in the last few months so I guess it's all a bit of a wake up call. As I said, having decent reasons this time around has given me higher hopes of actually being able to give up and be successful this time!

Today I did the '1000 Steps,' which is a Kokoda trail memorial hike which is supposed to emulate what the troops went through hiking up with Kokoda trail (obviously to a much lesser extent.) My legs still feel like jelly! But I love exercise and the outdoors and getting fresh air.