I am the troll under the bridge

The first time I ever smoked a cigarette, I was a freshman in high school. I was in a play and, while I had no speaking lines, I was going to be on stage the WHOLE time. I was freaking out. A friend took me outside and told me to smoke a cigarette to calm me down, which I did. I cannot say that I enjoyed it, at all, or that it calmed my nerves, but the buzz was sufficient to take my mind off of my stage fright and go on with the performance.

I didn't smoke again until five years later, in college. But stupid me, who had escaped for so long despite the fact that all of my friends were smokers, fell right into the trap. I have quit several times since, when I was pregnant with Indigo, for example. Then, about 2 years ago, with the help of a book, I quit "once and for all." I was sure of it. And I would have been completely successful, too, if it weren't for one tiny little detail--I became over-confident. After 1 1/2 years of being a very happy non-smoker, completely free of any cravings whatsoever, I found myself in an extremely stressful situation. I was so confident in being a non-smoker that I thought I could have one cigarette and I would be fine. I was emotionally crashing at that moment, surely a little smoke couldn't hurt?

I was so wrong. Within two weeks I was buying a pack every other day and that's the way it has been for about 6 months now. I felt really guilty and ashamed, not to mention how terrible my lungs felt all over again, and how my anxiety was now 2-fold as, besides trying to cope with afore-mentioned stressful situation, I had to feed this little addiction every couple of hours as well. In the past 6 months I tried and failed miserably to quit smoking, on 3 separate occasions. Worse, I had to try to explain to Indigo what was going on and why I failed to quit.

Well, I have finally done it. I smoked my last. If you have been wondering where my blog went the past few days, well, I have been spending my time exercising, napping, watching Firestarter, exercising more, drinking water, napping, acting kind of crazy, cleaning, napping, and trying not to bite anyone's head off. That might all sound nuts, but I am more confident than I ever have been before that I will never, EVER smoke again. Now I am armed with the knowledge of how terrible even one cigarette can be. Now whenever I think I want one, I just think about raising that smoke to my lips. But instead of taking a drag, my mouth is suddenly filled with cigarette butts and ash. That pretty much does the trick! :D

The only problem is that, for now, I feel like the troll under the bridge, lurking, skulking, distracting myself until some poor innocent victim comes along and I SNAP out at them! Big, bad, mean ol' Lea. My acupuncturist told me that a lot of people actual fail to stop smoking because they act so mean for awhile, they feel like it would be better to just start again. Well, I'm not going to let that happen, so now I am going to go exercise some more (endorphins help), and visit said acupuncturist to help chill me out.

Thanks for letting me ramble today. I know this post is pretty far off my norm, but to be honest I am writing it more for me than for you this time. To reinforce my decision, to make it public, making me accountable, and to be perfectly honest, to get some words of encouragement. I am so exited for the fog to clear as all of the nicotine leaves my body, for my lungs to heal up, to smell good, have good breath, be a great example for my daughter, get all of my energy back, be able to exercise again and have it actually benefit me, let go of all of the guilt once and for all.

p.s. The above photo is a picture of my actual cigarettes after I smoked my last one! Then I put them in the trash and poured water over them :D I am FREEEEEEEEEE!