Day 12, a.m.

Everything is about the same for me this morning as it was yesterday. I am still smoking, my desire to smoke has decreased and I am still craving cigarettes from time to time.

Here’s something: My dependence on coffee seems to be back. I have been craving it like cigarettes for the past 5 days and it is no longer making me itchy. It does, however, increase my energy more than what it normally would have.

I was able to walk my dog over to a friend’s house who just came back from a 4 month stint in South Korea and Thailand yesterday, socialize with her and her family for a while and walk home without thinking about smoking. In fact, I knew I would be gone a long time and decided I wouldn’t need my cigarettes.

That’s a type of one of the small steps I need to focus on and enjoy.

The Zyban does work. I just have to figure out what extra steps are that I need to take myself to get off these cigarettes.

Another note is that, this weekend, when boyfriend has gone out to smoke (I don’t smoke in my home) he has come back smelling HORRIBLE. This means two things to me: 1) Wow, this must be what they’re talking about when they say Zyban makes people hate the smell of smoke, and 2) I think I need to go smoke so I can distract myself from the smell coming off of him by putting it on me too.

Am I insane? Where do I come up with these ideas? How do I rationalize relieving the discomfort of my disgustingly smelly boyfriend by immersing myself in the same thing that made him smell so bad in the first place? When he is sweaty and gross, do I try to make myself that way too? No. I stay way the hell away from him and tell him to go take a shower!

Another difference for me since taking Zyban is that I have been less stringent upon doing an hour of cardio at the gym. It’s become hard for me (mentally) to keep going. I want to stop at a ½ hour and am usually able to push myself to 45 minutes. I think it’s just a rut though. I feel that, in the back of my mind, I know once I push myself up to 1 hour again, I will always go that long (it makes me feel so good too). I hate that I’m stuck at the half hour mark though. It honestly seems like I’ve wasted my time going to the gym if I only do 30 minutes. It feels like only a warm-up.

Oh, and I’ve been grinding my teeth something fierce for the past few days. My jaw is aching from the grinding/TMJ and I am only able to eat soups and noodles right now. I can barely fit a spoon between my teeth right now ‘cause my jaw is so bad. My teeth hurt and I think I’ve given myself a cavity on one particular tooth that I have focused on destroying. Gah!