Many, if not all, of us have used stess as a reason to light up. Some of the various rationales I've had are: "Family/ boyfriends' family/ work/ etc. is driving me nuts." "If cigarettes don't give me a heart attack, _____ will." "I need to have a cigarette now or someone's gonna get hurt." ...Yep, I had some good ones.
But here's the thing I've noticed. The longer that I'm quit, the calmer I am. The events that used to just tweak me out and send me running outside for a fix just don't have the same power anymore. I truly believe that the nicotine roller coaster was responsible for at least 50% of my stress response.
In the Freedom From Nicotine ebook, I read that stress actually causes blood nicotine levels to drop, and that's why we go running for a smoke when we are stressed. At the same time, that drop in blood nicotine level (i.e., beginning stages of withdrawal) is its own source of anxiety. I think that, as we quit, we still associate smoking with stress relief (since it relieves the stress of an addict's craving), even though it's not really a source of relief for regular life stress. We also associate not smoking with rising anxiety, simply because we've had withdrawal anxiety from not smoking in the past.
Now that I'm nearly a year and half out of the woods, I see how ridiculous the stress excuse is. For example, I just got done with a super crazy day at work. There were all kinds of people in and out of my work space, demanding my immediate attention over this and that. Also, several issues that I need assistance with remain unresolved, and I wasn't able to get the tasks done that I wanted to get done.
When the sweet gods of time mercifually put an end to this workday, I looked up and remembered how I would have previously been chomping at the bit to go running out of the building and across the street to light up. And I would have been insanely frustrated with anyone dumb enough to get in my path with a question, concern, or need.
Today, I was so glad that I didn't have that additional source of anxiety to deal with. Instead, I could just breathe a sigh of relief, and be glad that this mess is over for today.
Life's a lot simpler over here on the other side.
Wish I'd have figured that out sooner.
