Quitting smoking and losing my mind.

Tonight I have been smoke free for one week. This is the hardest thing I've ever done. It's been a week of crying bouts, headaches, shaking, nausea and diarrhea. Sometimes the only thing keeping me from going to Diane and getting a pack is the thought of the smug look she'll get on her face when she realizes that I've failed. She normally makes me eat crow when I give in and start smoking again.

I've made it a week, surely this is the hardest part, I hope. What scares me are the panic attacks. When they come they are terrifying. I feel like I am losing my mind and will be lost in this madness forever. Sometimes they last for an hour, sometimes they go on for hours. I am always scared that this time it won't end, ever.

I spend a great deal of time sleeping and when I'm up I want to be out on my scooter. If I can go somewhere I can forget about it for a while. But not for long. It seems that every second of every minute I am aware that I do not have a cigarette in my hand.

One of the most gawdawful things I have learned is that the native smokes I've been buying are not just tobacco, which is bad enough for your health and lungs...but the natives in the factory routinely crap and pee in the tobacco as it is getting ground up for the cigarettes. I've been smoking shit. Lovely.

I've noticed that my sleeping routine is completely shot. I get tired in the afternoon and have a nap, then about 9:30 or 10 I get tired again and go to bed. Then I get up around 3 in the morning until 5 or 6 and then go back to bed. I figure that whatever it takes to get through this misery is worth it.

The last time I quit it lasted 10 years. I wonder how long this one will last.