The app I found to track what I used to smoke and how much I used to spend versus what I'm gaining back has been encouraging. From reaching health benefit goals to financial goals, it's a good supplement to being on the smoke-free side of the struggle.
I do find that I am still missing that first drag in the morning, and the immediate halt it puts on my brain. That's the whole reason I started in the first place. I was waitressing. My brain was going a mile a minute trying to remember orders and making her and put them into the computer. The very instant I took a puff I have a cigarette, everything would just stop for a second. That was outside of drinking, anyway. The first time I tried a cigarette, my ex and I been drinking and he pulled out a couple of those flavoured cigarillos, which created a new buzz, but in subsequent partying moments, I noticed the buzz I got from those lost its strength. Another time he happened to have cigarettes in hand, from somewhere (much to my shock), so I tried one of those.
That happened a few times while drinking. Then, while waitressing, as a noob, and as a former head case, I had my first legit sober smoke. The spinning thoughts slowed down immediately. I'll never forget standing outside the back door of the restaurant feeling mental relief wash through my mental faculties.
A normal story, by all accounts. Except that it wasn't and it shouldn't have been, because this ex of mine survived hellacious bouts of cancer, and this point in time was about 5 or 6ish years into being cancer free, although not joint free. It was never, not once, lost on me how VERY much I ought not be smoking. This is a journey into itself, of choosing to smoke despite ALL... the reasons not to.
And it wasn't normal in the way that I had clearly not learned to deal with the spinning. Because here it is again. Except I have to deal with the spinning now instead of forcing it back down with the inhaling of carcinogens. But I remember buying my first pack with my tip money and promptly becoming what I thought was a closet smoker. I doubt I was as covert as I thought I was.
