prettysmoker

     I am optimistic today about my quest to be smoke free. I had an informative discussion with a health care professional on Wednesday and I learned a thing or two about my addiction. She asked me specific questions abut my habit. Questions like; how long have I been smoking, when I smoke, how many cigarettes I smoke and so forth. I was able to further understand many characteristics with my habit that I have previously observed. My information was helpful to her as I have already begun to create a conscious awareness of my habit. She identified why I smoke in a 30 minute conversation and I had what Oprah likes to call an “Aha” moment. Wendy suggested that I smoke in order to regulate my moods. She couldn’t have been more right on. I’ve never been clinically depressed or sought help for depression but I have noticed a pattern throughout my young adult life of severe mood swings. I associate them with my period because when I began to track them several years ago I found they coincided with my monthly cycle. These severe mood swings happen just about every three months and always during my menstruation cycle. I have what I would describe as normal pms every month but every three months I experience a much more severe form of pms. I feel hopeless and upset and emotional. I question everything in my life. I feel anxious and sad. It’s very chemical and over the years I have been able to recognize when this occurs. I actually feel chemically different. This has helped me cope. Knowing it will only last a few days and while I feel pretty bad in the moment I am able to rationalize that it will end and I will feel back to myself in a few days. Besides these “quarterly” mood swings I also use smoking as a way to manage my moods during high stress periods in my life. I can look back and recognize I started smoking when my stress level was the highest it had ever been in my life. I was going to graduate school in California. I was a full time mom to Olivia. I was working and going to school and I didn’t know a single soul in California. Wendy told me Nicotine acts as a mood stabilizer. So it was not just that I was smoking to manage my mood behaviorally. Smoking was actually stabilizing my moods chemically from the nicotine.

Armed with this new information about my smoking habit I am prepared to come up with a new plan to quit based on my behaviors around smoking. I am going to do some research around mood management. This research will include mood management through natural means such as vitamins, yoga, acupuncture and so on. I haven’t begun my research as of yet but it will be a big part of my quit smoking plan. In the meantime I am not going to set my quit date until after my move. At first I thought this was just another excuse to postpone quitting. But I also heard Wendy urge me to be gentler on my self. I have been very hard on myself which has caused me to smoke even more. I am using smoking to manage my very negative emotions toward myself for not being able to quit. It’s quite the vicious cycle! For now I am going to cut back as much as I can. I am going to continue to train for my marathon in November. I am going to concentrate on doing the best I can. I am moving in three weeks. I will set a quit date once I am in California. I feel better already. I am looking forward to finding out more about balancing my chemistry without the aid of nicotine.

On a lighter note I woke up this morning and I was thinking about how much I love my daughter. I took her to her dance lesson yesterday. We have a long drive there and back because it is quite a ways away and we go during rush hour traffic. I enjoy this time because it gives us time together. We were goofing off and acting ridiculous in the car. I told her I loved hanging out with her. That made her smile. Big.  I was thinking about how much I love her when I woke up this morning. She is the love of my life.  

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