Kicking the Habit... Once again

I've mentioned a few times that I need to quit smoking. So, just to let everyone know that I'm not "all talk," I'm going to see what I can do about quiting... once again.

So that's why I made the trip to Wal-Mart to buy one of these...

I'm trying the patch. I've used it before, and thought "it couldn't hurt."

Before I started smoking again last year, I had quit for almost three years. I quit cold turkey. What helped was that I had my last cigarette the Friday before I turned in my letter of resignation at my social work job. I can't handle stress to well. I turned to smoking to handle my stress.

I picked up the habit last summer. I was stressed, bummed out, and frustrated at work and I allowed myself one cigarette per week. But then my aunt was murdered (I'm not going to sugar coat what happened, it was murder) and well that once a week turned in to at least one a night then some. Then my Memaw had her stroke in January so all ideas of quitting went out the window.

If I'm away from my apartment, say at my parent's, my sister's or on vacation, I can go a week without a cigarette. But as soon as I come back, it's what I want.

Notice the picture says Step 2. I'm not a heavy smoker. Step 2 is for people who smoke 10 cigarettes or less a day. It's on the weekends, when I have free time that I smoke the most. Working doesn't give me the chance to smoke.

I put first patch on last night before bed. I woke up with a headache (I went to be with a headache). I wonder if the nicotine in the patch added to the headache. The patch came off this morning and the headache as somewhat subsided.

One of the directions indicates... "if you have vivid dreams or other sleep disturbances, you may remove the patch at bedtime and apply a new one in the morning." That could explain why I didn't fall asleep until after 2:00 am. That could also explain why I vividly remember working at a doctor's reception desk with the assistant director of my library, and me marching up to a parent of three rambunctious kids, taking away their bottles of ketchup and mustard because she (the mother) would tell her children to stop squirting the red and yellow substances on the waiting room walls. It says "vivid" dreams. Not necessarily "strange" dreams.