I Can't Afford to Quit Smoking!!! (No Worries, I Kid.)

Well, this binary 1 work thing is a trip. I am not used to working this long and hard without something like a deadline or final exam in front of my face. But part of the reason for doing it was so in the early days of the quit, I would have something to do beyond think.

Thinking is extremely dangerous in the early days of a quit and should be avoided as much as possible :) Thinking should be done before a quit. All lists of reasons and etc. get done then. After a quit, thinking is so not your friend. You might think about doing a blog post about the reasons behind this quit, versus the others, for example. (No! Don't think!) The reasons are the same as they ever wuz. But now you have brought up the spectre of failure, like the other times, the ones with the same old reasons. Or you might find yourself arguing against the reasons! Honestly, give as little time and energy to cigarettes, your quit, the deprivation of same, etc, etc, as possible.

If you are a badass meditator, you can practice switching focus when one of these smoking thoughts comes up, or repeating a mantra: "I take excellent care of my health", for example.

For the rest of us, there is binary 1 work week: now we are unloading the dishwasher. Now we are sweeping the doghair off the floors. Now we are inventorying the Tex-Mex auction lot. One is deliberately keeping the focus micro level and populating thoughts intentionally with stuff like "Ick. This cat hairball Max threw up all over my Japanese marine insurance sign is disgusting! I must rub very gently so the paint isn't disturbed, cleaning it. Where can I store it that isn't the floor? Damn cat. Spawn of Satan.".

Worked great Thursday!!! omg, Friday we had a strike action, though. The combined stress of the quit plus the work-all-day, work-all-night thing; I went AWOL. (I think it was the redolent scent of cat urine and slurried litter chunks from the bathroom floors and wall I was cleaning behind the litter box, for the first time in three years. I snapped! I lost it!) I recovered briefly, though. Kept working, ran some errands working, THEN lost it 'round noon for good. Popped into a restaurant on the way back from errands to treat myself to lunch with the saved $10-$15/day I no longer burn through. I looved lunch, my book, my New Yorker, SOO much, and came home and read my New Yorker all afternoon and went out for dinner, too, goshdarnit. You want me to quit, you better divert me with something to make this day less SUCKFEST. Yes, penne with shrimp in a rose sauce fits the bill perfectly, thank you. Mmmmmmmmm. Yes, and I had 3 glasses of wine, and finished my book. Slothtastic!!! :) And verry expensivo. I think I spent close to a weeks' worth of ciggy $ bribing my butt into "not deprived!" mode on Friday (Friday was a Bad. Day. Bitter, glum, po' me, low energy, enthusiasm well into negative territory. Mr. Grumpy).

It was worth it, though: still no smokey!!! So, I must say, I recommend the work work work work quit plan. Apparently if you make life entirely intolerable and no fun whatsoever, chain gang style, breakin' rocks, then you can up and quit the chain gang! And the whole leisure + no cigs + food substitution thing, is halcyon! It's not deprivation, it's 100% ahhh, gonna read my magazine now, dudes, and yes the zabaglione for dessert sounds great. Screw you, Mr. Overseer. Smell ya later.

I think working Thursday and not working Friday saved my quit. That is the point I'm trying to make here. I always seem to manage the first few days on raw enthusiasm and novelty, and then mess up mid to late, in the first week, is my quit M.O. But not this time.

Good golly Miss Molly!!! It is Quit Day Eight here (Saturday and today to date, I am back on the Werk binary 1 wagon, too. Can you stand the virtue? lol).