Six months down the road I really don’t miss any of those things. I am SO happy to be FREE of that goddamned addiction.

NEVER use the works “I’m giving up” when talking about quitting smoking – you are “giving up” nothing – you have SO much more to gain by quitting.

When I had originally applied for the grant I had fleetingly worried about how I would react if I didn’t get the grant – remember that I had linked this quit to a professional goal because I had always failed to quit for myself – well that grant proposal was a major part of that professional goal. Not getting it was a huge test for me – on a platter I was handed a get out of jail card free and I could go back smoking with a great excuse in hand (at least it looks like a great excuse to a cigarette addict!). Well I resisted but boy was it trying for a few days and I owe so much to everyone who helped me through it. I grew up a lot but the beauty is that for once in my life I saw how stupid it would be to smoke. So all in all, I did great and I am proud to say I am well on my way to being a non-smoker!!

For those people who have always been non-smokers I want to dispel some myths that they are fond of telling smokers as (annoying & very irritating) reasons to stop smoking:
- Getting back your sense of smell is not all that it is scratched up to be – there are really lots of bad smells around us.
- Food does not necessarily taste better. I actually can’t stand even the thought of a MacDonald’s burger now (well that is not a bad thing is it?)

Healthwise my blood pressure is down and my pulse is now in the high 50′s or low 60′s – when I was smoking it was high 70′s. I am 3lbs heavier but if I stop eating chocolate I’m sure I will lose that in a few weeks, plus I have been skipping exercise so tomorrow I have to change that!

“Jackie Hoysted has some rather intriguing abstracts using encaustic, paper and tobacco juice stains from cigarette butts she’s smoked. The depth of art isn’t always readily apparent and this is a fine example there of. Having quit smoking six weeks ago, Hoysted took her former vice and made art out of it. The brown-toned tobacco stains are placed on paper burned at the edges. The encaustic adding a warmed toned wash to it all. The burned paper edges representing the damage she has done to her body through her years of smoking. It’s nice to see her working through her tobacco addiction and leaving something positive behind. Here’s to her conquering it. “

Read the full article here.

I’m feeling great – I am missing cigarettes less and less and I guess more importantly I am learning how to deal with not having any i.e. I am learning new behavioral skills. I’ve noticed if I have any cause for elation of mood (excitement, happiness, whatever) I really want to inhale smoke. I don’t know what normal people do when they are happy or want to celebrate. I guess I will have to ask some “normal” people. Bizarre! Now when I have cause to feel down or in bad mood, I am more inclined to blame that on not having cigarettes – now sometimes that may be true I could indeed be missing a cigarette but I think other times I am in just plain old bad mood and that temper really is mine. Could I have smoked so long that I hid behind a smokescreen? Every aspect of dealing with life had become a reason to have a cigarette not something to deal with….I really need to think more about this….I think I’ll start carrying a notebook with me to write down when I have an “urge” to have a cigarette – I am sure that will reveal a lot of my character.