{"id":2922,"date":"2009-04-09T07:26:51","date_gmt":"2009-04-09T11:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/?p=2922"},"modified":"2011-03-19T11:40:37","modified_gmt":"2011-03-19T15:40:37","slug":"kicking-the-habit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/2009\/04\/kicking-the-habit\/","title":{"rendered":"Kicking the Habit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Still sick, coughing, shivering, sweating, miserable. One good thing has come out of this, though. I’m sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, and there’s one thing I know I can (and should) do to make things better.<\/p>\n

I am quitting my terrible smoking habit. <\/p>\n

Potential embarrassment and shame about failure will be a further incentive, so I’m announcing here there and everywhere.<\/p>\n

I’ve got a quit date – next Wednesday April 15th. I took my first Chantix pill last night. and it takes about a week to kick in – and my birthday isn’t a bad day to quit. I (really, desperately) hope it helps me get through the initial stages of withdrawal. <\/p>\n

I’ve got a list of various warning signs, and another list of helpful tips – and I’m trying to adjust my psychology between now and then. I’m not going to do any nicotine replacement, because for me that would just prolong the misery. <\/p>\n

I’ve been thinking seriously about quitting for a while now, but I just haven’t had the will. Everything came together this time, and it feels like a good time to do it. <\/p>\n

I want to feel better, have more energy, and get that smell off of me. I want to get my father’s flat hopeless look out of my eyes. I want to be free of this addiction. <\/p>\n

I’m also sick of the snarky comments, and the increasing class distinction – although to be honest, that’s just one more stupid reason that I’ve kept smoking, in defiance and rebellion. Well, gotta transcend that too. <\/p>\n

John seems a bit apprehensive, as well he should be. The last time I tried this, it didn’t go very well. I know he really wants me to quit, though, and he’ll be very happy to see me do it – once it’s done. <\/p>\n

My posts for a bit may just chronicle this particular journey. Maybe it won’t be a big deal. Maybe I’ll be a little crazy. I’m not sure. Even if things are a bit unstable for a couple of weeks, it will be worth it to get to the other side. I’ve got a lot of support for this, and I hope that my family, friends and co-workers will cut me a little slack if I act a little bit uncharacteristically here and there. I’m a little worried about that aspect of things; it’s one of the reasons I’ve put this off. Ideally, I would be shuttled off to some cabin miles from anywhere for the first two weeks, but that’s never going to happen – and waiting for the perfect opportunity to quit has meant that I haven’t quit. There’s never going to be the perfect time. <\/p>\n

By Ben’s birthday – one month after mine – he’ll have a totally smoke-free and recovered Mommy wishing him a happy birthday, and she won’t have a lighter handy for the nine candles on his cake.<\/p>\n

There is one thing that I truly enjoy about smoking. The controlled breathing of smoke in and out of me always made me feel a bit like a dragon, the keeper of the flame, the mistress of the wind. I’ll miss that more than anything else.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Still sick, coughing, shivering, sweating, miserable. One good thing has come out of this, though. I’m sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, and there’s one thing I know I can (and should) do to make things better. I am quitting my terrible smoking habit. Potential embarrassment and shame about failure will be a further incentive, so I’m announcing here there and everywhere. I’ve got a quit date – next Wednesday April 15th. I took my first Chantix pill…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,6,27],"tags":[3312,5512,5515,5359,3955,1791,3228,5517,5514,4029,3719,5513,5516],"class_list":["post-2922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mommy-stuff","category-personal","category-virushead","tag-air","tag-chantix","tag-cigarettes","tag-daddy","tag-dragon","tag-energy","tag-fire","tag-flame","tag-nicotine","tag-smell","tag-smoke","tag-smoking","tag-wind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2922"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2926,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922\/revisions\/2926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}