Posted in: Other - Quitting Smoking
Date: April 17, 2010
It is now day two of quitting smoking. I still feel out of it, but I'm beginning to see some positive results. First, I slept better last night. Second, I actually feel my energy coming back. I used to feel this heaviness as I walked around, especially after I smoked, but now I feel lighter and more energetic.
At this point, I feel like I'm just waiting for things to change. I can't feel good right now… I can't feel motivated right now… But if I just wait, eventually all that will change. I've see it happen before. I really do believe that quitting smoking makes life better. It's better physically and emotionally. Eventually you forget all about cigarettes. Strangely though, the idea of a cigarette always seems to come back. You want it, and you smoke it, and then you're hooked all over again. I don't want that to happen again.
So far, I've saved five dollars by not buying cigarettes.
I no longer have that smoker smell. I always felt embarrassed about that. I always wondered if people looked down on me. I kept my distance from some people because I knew my clothes and my breath must smell like cigarettes.
After smoking for so long, your pointing and middle finger begin to stain from the smoke. The smoking smell gets embedded in your skin. I never actually noticed, but smoking stains your teeth too. I wonder what my teeth would look like if I didn't smoke.
In the next few days I'll probably start coughing a lot more. The last time I quit, I was running every other day, and I would cough up 'lung cookies'. These are tiny, compact balls of mucous. It's like the tar and smoke mixes with the mucous and attaches to your lungs. When you start using your lungs and the cilia start growing back, you start coughing these cookies up. They're not very big - maybe the size of a nerd candy or tiny pebble. They feel big when you cough them up.