This is my stop smoking journal.

Scare Wow, I had a scare last night. I thought I was going to die. My blood pressure was way too high and it felt like my head was going to explode. I couldnt sleep or even think. I was so afraid. I prayed to God and asked him to please let me live. I told him (here comes the bargaining with God that we all do) that if he lets me live, I would make a change. Im not even forty-two years old and Im dying. To be more accurate, Im killing myself. The first thing I will do to save my life is to stop smoking. That is the primary reason for my blood pressure issues. Im truly addicted. I would rather smoke than eat. I smoke a pack plus per day and Im a freight train smoking when Im sitting at my computer. As a matter of fact, I want a cigarette right now. The second reason for my blood pressure issues is my weight. Im what you call morbidly obese and Im the sized of four women melded into one. I dont have low self esteem, so I dont have a problem mentally with being morbidly obese, but my body has a problem with it. It just cant take the strain anymore. Heredity is the third reason or factor that adds to my blood pressure problems. My daddy died of a stroke caused by high blood pressure. He was seventy and in much better physical condition than I am now, but it took him. He stopped smoking and drinking, but he didnt eat right and he could afford his medicine. I pretty much in the same boat, but I can afford medicine. I dont want to die for Addams sake. I dont want to leave him alone. He has grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousin galore, but Im his immediate family. He has only seen his father once and he doesnt have any blood sibling. Im his family until he gets married to someone who looks exactly like Eva Mendez. He loves Hispanic women and beside he promised me grandchildren to spoil. I have to be a part of their lives as well. They have to know me personally and not through stories. I have to be there for them and here for Addam for a long time. I need help with my will power. Ive never had any. God please let me do this. Let me live and look back at this diary entry and laugh with joy forty something years from now. I need to get organized with this and start seeing doctors and getting on the right track with food and exercise. I want this so bad. Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The Click Understanding Brick Pollitt Brick: Somethin' hasn't happened yet. Big Daddy: What's that? Brick: A click in my head. Big Daddy: Did you say "click"? Brick: Yes sir, the click in my head that makes me feel peaceful. Big Daddy: Boy, sometimes you worry me. Brick: It's like a switch, clickin' off in my head. Turns the hot light off and the cool one on, and all of a sudden there's peace. Big Daddy: Boy, you're, you're a real alcoholic! Brick: That is the truth. Yes, sir, I am an alcoholic. So if you'd just excuse me... Big Daddy: [grabbing him] No, I won't excuse you. Brick: Now I'm waitin' for that click and I don't get it. Listen, I'm all alone. I'm talkin' to no one where there's absolute quiet. Big Daddy: You'll hear plenty of that in the grave soon enough. I have never made a conscious choice to stop smoking, ever. I would usually have pneumonia or some respiratory ailment that would force me to put my pack down for a while. I also quit when I was pregnant with my son because I wanted him to be healthy. I quit successfully all those times because I guess I knew in the back of my mind that it was only temporary. I knew that in a few days, or months, I could feel that soothing click in my brain that I get from smoking my cigarettes. The soothing click gives me order and prospective. That click tells me what I want, what I need and most importantly it tells me what to do next. (I get it Brick.) It has been with me constantly since I was fifteen years old and even before. I used to sneak and light my parents discarded butts when I was about eight years old. That click was there then, but not its got to go. I realized yesterday morning the click, the soothing click, is not my friend, but a murderer. Its a sneaky bastard murder that lives in my family and has killed quiet a bit of my family already. My Big Mama had emphysema, my daddy had a stroke and my Aunt Dorothy had respiratory illnesses from living with smokers. She didnt even smoke. That sneaky fucking bastard! It wants me now. That click wants me to die too. It wants to take me away from my son, my sisters and the family that I love so much. I dont want to be just a memory. I dont want to be dead in my early forties. I have to fight the click, but it is so strong. Im so scared. Im

scared because I know how bad smoking is and I know that it wants me to die, but I miss it. I miss it so much. I want it. I want to feel the click gain. I want my life to have order and I want to know what to do next. I think I know what I want to do, but Im not sure. I need the click to be sure of what I want. (I get it Brick.) That fucking soothing click! Its 9:03 am. In one hour Ill be thirty-six hours voluntarily smoke free. This is something new to me. I feel good physically. I can breathe better. I have a little spring in my step and I dont completely reek of smoke. My head is not exploding because my blood pressure is down a little. I feel little cleaner. I wonder how I will feel tomorrow and the next day. Better physically. But mentallyIm struggling. I feel like I have Stockholm syndrome when it comes to smoking. Im a prisoner in love with my capturer. Im a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (I get it Brick.) 5/21/2009 9:21:30 AM. Its 10:05 I made it!

Kathy sent me an email with an inspirational quote from the Joel Osteen Ministries and this was my response to it:
What do you want me to do with this!? I can't smoke Joel and Victoria. Do either one of them have a pack of cigarette!? Joel looks like a smoker to me. Just kidding. I'm coming down. I have come to realize that I'm probably Bi-polar/Manic Depressive and I need to get me some real help. One day. I think was using the cigarettes to maintain both the mania and the depression and now I've quit my coping mechanism. What can I do? I can be manic, I can be depressed, but I can't smoke. I don't want to die. Mind Switch: To Be: I'm sorry Be, but I'm a hypocrite. I preach and preach about there being no perfect and how people set standards too high for love ones to life up to. Although I myself I think and expect my sisters to be perfect. When they don't do/act/say things as I feel they should in relation to that spectrum of perfection that I have created for them in my mind, I get very angry and I am not about throwing temper tantrums. Hulk Smash! How judgmental is that? That is my problem and I will have to work on it. Not today, but someday. You guys know I love you and I'm not afraid to say it. Mind switch: Whew! God let the craving pass once more. I wish Mama and James would stop offering me cigarettes. I know they don't, but it seems like they want me to fail. I don't know if they don't understand that I'm trying to save my life or they care so much for me that they don't want me to feel so bad. I think they care so much they don't want me to feel pain. I am in pain. Craving ain't no joke. Mind Switch: What happened to the sister meetings? I made it through another craving and Im good now. It will be 9 day at 10:00 pm tonight. I feel like writing a story or reading one. 5/28/2009 11:33:58 AM

Well, it has been over a year and I have not had a cigarette. Just like with any drug I crave them every day, but I know its one day at a time. The more stress Im in or the deeper a depression I sink, the more I crave. I dont want to start over. Im still having extreme problems with high BP, but I can at least say it is not because I smoke. No I have to work on those other clicks that have me addicted to an unhealthy life. 5/27/2010 7:38 AM I got married 2/14/11 to a class A cad. We were married less than 7 months when I found evidence of his many infidelities. He was unapologetic and accused me of now having faith in him. The women were sending me information left and right and showing up at the back door, plus I hacked his computer. I kept telling him I was smart. He was a ridiculous liar. I left him 1/3/12 because he came home at 2am, smelling better than when he left, crawled in the bed with me and tried to mate. Of course being a stress smoker I started back smoking 1/6/12. I smoked for a year and now Im trying to quit again. Its not as hard as it was the first time, so Im less crack-headish. Its hard because I really enjoy smoking, but its still killing me. I dont wanna die, well not from smoking. 3/4/2013 10:12 AM