Guess who quit smoking the other day? [View All]

Moi!

This past Friday. I'd had some strange symptoms on Thursday and took my bp with my little digital wrist cuff a bunch of times -- and the results were NOT good. In fact, it scared the beejeesus out of me. We're talking stroke territory.

Friday morning, same thing. So I smoked my last cigarette and quit. 10:57 a.m. No choice.

But, here's the funny thing, and the main reason I'm even posting about it (and the other reason is to share what's helping me).

Are you ready? I was using the b.p. wrist cuff incorrectly and my bp, while not great, was definitely NOT in "stroke territory." IOW: I inadvertently tricked myself into quitting smoking! Bwaahahaha. I am cracking myself up over this little prank I accidentally pulled on myself.

This is probably about the 4th or 5th time I've quit for any length of time (twice for over a year each), and this time I think I'm going to make it stick -- tho I have to work on the motivation for that a little bit more. I definitely know some things not to do (e.g., don't EVER smoke "just one" again -- nosirree, just like an alcoholic, don't do it).

Two things that are helping me tremendously are an herbal program I bought several years ago and had some very good success with (tho obviously didn't stay "quit" that time). Even tho they're about 4 years old, the herbs still seem potent enough and are doing very well for me. It's a three-part set of herbal formulas from Viable Herbal Solutions. www.viable-herbal.com Do check the precautions (if you check out the herbal program) because there is a high blood pressure contraindication on these herbs -- I'm not using one of the three forumlas but have cobbled together some of the herbs in that forumla myself, avoiding the herbs I know are ill-advised.

I have had virtually NO cravings for the tobacco itself -- IOW, no real withdrawal as we most often think about it. That is remarkable to me and I absolutely credit the herbs. I have had what I'd call "habit" cravings -- "Oh, damn, I can't sit down for a few minutes and relax with a cigarette." Or "Damn, here I am driving, driving, and can't smoke." Or, "Okay, now that I've eaten...." But these really are fleeting. Of course I also make it a practice not to DWELL on these thoughts and feelings and memories of having a cigarette, and that helps (by contrast, writing about all this does not).

The herbal program also has a little aromatherapy component (so that makes it 4-part), and that does help the few times I've tried it.

And the other thing that's been really helpful, for dealing with all the emotional "stuff" that's surfacing (and there's been quite a bit of it), is EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique): www.emofree.com I've promoted and sang its praises before, it's been invaluable for dealing with this.

Today was my hardest day so far -- for some reason the closest to having real "cravings," the most persistent "habit cravings" and some of the suckiest emotional junk (altho yesterday was pretty ugly too, "life isn't worth living" and all that, LOL). Today it was, however, real clear to me that what I was going through was really classic "addiction" withdrawal stuff, probably less dramatic than a lot of addictions, but interesting to observe, nonetheless.