I'm soooo mad. No, I'm sad. Wait, wait...nope...I'm mad...

There are a few things they neglect to tell you when you're quitting smoking.  This is most likely because if you knew, you wouldn't quit.  Kind of like child birth.  If there were a way to explain the level of agony you'd experience during child birth, you wouldn't do it.  At least I wouldn't do it.  Unfortunately, our brain forgets certain things...like child birth, just so that we do do it again.  I fogot some of these things from the last time I quit smoking. 

I distinctly remember being told that cravings last for mere 10 second intervals.  Make it through the 10 seconds and you're good for a couple of hours.  This is a lie.  I crave cigarettes 24 hours a day.  If (and by if, I mean when...) I wake up in the middle of the night, I instantly crave a cigarette.  It is all I can think about.  There might be a 10 second window in my 24 hour day that I do not think about smoking.  Drink a glass of cold water, they say.  Ya, okay.  Whatever. 

I have this yucky metalic taste in my mouth that I cannot get rid of.  No matter how many times I brush my teeth, nor how many mints I suck on, nor how many pieces of gum I stuff in my mouth...it's still there.  It's horrible.

I have copious (and I use this word only because there is no other word that can describe it other than 'copious') amounts of saliva.  I am producing so much saliva that I am surprised I am not continually drooling throughout the day.  I spit when I talk.  Because I have copious amounts of saliva.  It's driving me crazy.  I should donate my saliva to people with dry mouths.  Wouldn't that be nice of me?

It has been almost a week and I still feel like puking.  Only now it comes in waves.  I'll be feeling next to normal and then all of the sudden I feel so horribly ill.  And the dizzy spells are getting old. 

In the grieving process, I'm somewhere in between denial and anger and sadness.  I go from thinking I could have "just one more" to freaking out when I remember that I cannot have any more, ever ever again.  I am angry that something so trivial could have such a hold on me.  I am angry that the person next door is allowed to smoke and I'm not.  I am angry that people think it's easy, but say they think it's hard.  I am angry that people who've quit before me say that it is the best thing they've ever done.  I went on this quit smoking web site and I've never seen anything so condescending in my life.  And that's only because I'm super grumpy today.  Maybe tomorrow it will be helpful...I get so mad/frustrated that sometimes I just want to scream.  And sometimes, I do scream.  I'm pretty good at controlling it in public, though.  Yay for me.

I miss my old friend tobacco, and I am mourning the loss of nicotine.  Formaldyhyde and carbon monoxide, oh the world just isn't the same without you.