i am over the hump of my first day.....again.

i can honestly say that this is the third time i have tried to quit CT and i am hoping the saying rings true that third time's a charm! the first time i tried, i went about 22 hours and felt like i was going to rip my skin off and beat someone else with it. the second time i tried to quit was just this past week where i went 55 hours into my quit and gave up. no excuses, this was my doing and i know i need to do this the right way -- for my own safety, life and health.

i am one of the oddballs with this though i feel like. because i beat myself up, over and over again, because i kicked a nine year opiate addiction in two weeks and now any sort of medication scares the dickens out of me. i won't even look in the direction of medication because of what i went through. i did my opiate [percocet and vicodin] withdrawal at home, by myself, no medications - just me, my cigarettes, TV, water and gatorade - and lots and lots of showers. cigarettes helped me get through that two wee time period in my life. here i am almost eight years sober from that addiction and i find it so hard to quit the cigarettes.

some people say that quitting something is the easiest thing they have done in life. even after the dust has settled for almost the past decade, i can still say without a shadow of a doubt that quitting pain pills was the hardest thing i had done. scratch that. quitting them was easy - withdrawal was the hardest thing i had ever gone through in my life.

i like that this site gives you the option to keep a journal. i want to have something where, in a few months and years, i can look back and read what i was going through to keep me motivated.

so far, here is what i have been feeling:

depressed

antsy

sleep escapes me, so i am having broken up sleep

heart races off and on

cloudy/foggy head

irritated a lot

i went out this morning and got two packs of gum. i had bought myself two small bags of werther's hard candies during my last attempt to quit so i have been using those every now and then as well. tonight is grocery shopping night for me, so i am hoping that this lousy feeling in my head clears up a little before that. i feel like i am going to fall over and faint - and i feel dizzy and lightheaded a lot as well.

i have to keep telling myself that i would rather take these symptoms than the ones i had with pain pill withdrawal. trust me when i say that poo'ing on yourself a couple of times a day because you couldn't get to the bathroom fast enough isn't a good look for anyone.

i have also been feeling intense sadness. when i went through my pain pill detox at home - i relied heavily on a forum that i am proud to say i am still an active member on after all of these years. the forum used to be flooded with people needing help with their detox, but i am seeing that dwindle down a lot. what used to be such a bust forum/message board is now a place where you're lucky if someone posts once a day. it doesn't make me sad for me.....it makes me sad that there aren't more people out there taking charge of their lives like so many have and want for these people. i dunno, just makes me sad - that's what i was getting at.

i had a phone call last night from someone i went to school with named brandon. he is doing his thing in the big apple and is an actor - i always knew he would go far - but he is on week five of his quit and he is loving life now. he saw where i had posted on my facebook page about quitting and reached out and it meant a lot to me. i don't know what it is, but i enjoy hearing about what people have suffered and gone through with their quits; i am just that type of person that loves being prepared for the worst, if it were to ever come to that.

having panic disorder hasn't helped my quit, honestly. i am so fearful of any and every thing that could happen to me. i didn't have panic disorder when i went through my opiate nonsense, so i sort of tried to breeze through it and had little to no worries about it. with this, i have worries.

i think that's it for now. lots of rambling and i apologize for that. i guess it's okay, though, because i feel like this can be somewhat of a safe place for me to put every thing down in words.