Day 1 (Part 1) of my 21-Day Challenge

It's been a rough one today and it's only 12:30 my time. I put my patch on last night at about 11 PM, thankfully, it didn't itch like it usually does. My first wake up call came at 4 AM after a very vivid dream that included some cast members from the TV Show LOST  and some supper creepy manikins that moved. It took about 30 minutes to fall back asleep, which isn't that bad. The next wake up call was at 7:30 AM after another vivid dream involving me as a waitress at Pomodoro's (I worked there years ago). I could not do anything right waitressing and my customers were really mean and rude and the whole building looked different. I woke up from that dream when I started punching the wall in the dream. It was during my 7:30 wake up call that I knew today was going to be rough. It's pretty pathetic, but the only reason I get out of bed in the morning is to smoke. Well, I would have typically gotten up at 7:30 but I didn't. I was able to go back to sleep until 9:45 AM when my husband was getting ready for work. I didn't want to get out of bed, but I did. I should mention too that I slept with my left arm above my head (which I never do) and that it was completely numb...I tied to sit up and push myself up by leaning on my left arm and it went out on me.

Have any of you seen that commercial for Niccorette Gum where the man is sitting on a pier and he keeps saying "shark" over, and over, and over again and then a shark is actually attacking him? Well, that is a pretty accurate description for what cigarette cravings are like. The patch helps, but it doesn't make the cravings go away completely. My cravings are much shorter when I'm wearing the patch, but they are still there and just as annoying to get over.

My husband told me I should get out of the house today but I fear that I leave the house I will buy a pack of cigarettes.

11:35 AM- having my first hysterical beak down for no reason! Crying. Full blown shoulder shaking, screaming, yelling, sobbing. Just spent the last hour on the phone with HP tech support trying to fix my computer only to be bounced around to 3 different tech people, the last one telling me they no longer offer the services to fix my computer and then giving me the phone # for an HP product store. I call the product store only to be told to go to the Geek Squad at Best Buy...who wanted to charge us $1000 to send our computer to HP to get it fixed the last time we had this problem. I would like to swear now, but I'm tying to keep this as "clean" as possible for my supporters.

11:45 AM- I calmed down enough to call the Geek Squad. They said my problem sounded like the mother board or the screen chip and that they can't fix that in house and that it costs $1200 for the mother board and $700 for the screen chip.

11:50 AM- I called HP tech support back and warned the guy that answered that I was very pissed off and that he should just transfer me to his supervisor...which he didn't so he got an ear full from me. I swore at him and now I feel bad. He took my number and said that a case manager would call me within 24-48 hours and told me not to swear at the case manager or he would drop my case. I did not apologize for swearing. I hung up.

12:00 PM- Cried some more, and more, and more. As a matter of fact I'm crying while I write this because 1.) I feel bad for swearing at the guy, 2.) Fear that I am going crazy, 3.) Have thought about going to the store to get "just one more" several times already, 4.) Know that if I give up now, I will just have to go through this at a later date so I better just suck it up and stick it out.

I apologize to my readers, I bet you didn't know what you were getting yourselves into when you signed up to follow me. I am trying to breathe.  I know it will get worse before it gets better. I hope that in writing this that in the future if I ever contemplate smoking again I will read this and remember what kind of hell it is to quit. And now I feel bad for saying this is hell because there are people starving around the world and going through much worse than this and all I can do is cry because I can't smoke.

I hope in my next update I am not crying. Thank you for reading this. I think I need a nap even though I've only been awake for 3 hours. I promise (and hope) it will get better.