Hi Joel:
I can still feel that pack of cigarettes in my hand. I use to hold it in my right hand and do everything else I was doing like driving or writing something on a piece of paper or anything. That pack of cigarettes was always in my right hand with the lighter in the pack along with my cigarettes. I would hopefully finish the first couple of cigarettes from that pack fast so I could fit my lighter in the pack. It was one nifty, condensed package that had everything I needed in it to smoke a cigarette. Sometimes I would chew on the bottom of the cigarette box. I never realized what I was doing though. Not until now.
When I first tried to quit I was having a really hard time. I thought that if I brought a pack of cigarettes and lit them up one by one and burned them in the ashtray in front of me so that the smoke would go into my face, I would be o.k. Well that just started me on smoking again besides all the second hand smoke I inhaled that weekend. Even my eyes were tearing.
How stupid. Well when I quit after that I just got rid of everything. I thought I would be looking for something to play with in my right hand but I haven't missed the feeling, although I can still feel the pack in my hand sometimes (strange). I know people that I work with here that quit (a couple of people quit for 10 years). They always kept a pack of cigarettes with them during this time. I mean 10 years is a long time to quit. Well, they both went back to smoking cigarettes after 10 years but never smoked any of the cigarettes in that pack they just held onto. One girl had a scare of thyroid cancer and that made her quit for 10 years and the other one gained too much weight so she went back. Maybe just the reminder of holding onto those cigarettes for that long was too strong for them.
Well I just wanted to get through the first week because once you do that you can keep going. If I quit for 10 years I would hopefully never want to go back. I guess the feeling of that cigarette pack in my right hand will diminish over time. I'm sure all symptons will go away.....
Thanks...Judy