To The Katies
UK Katie; glad to hear you’re doing well and learning how to recognize
depression. I’ve had two spells of feeling low since my quit. Once was
a few weeks after quitting zyban and the other was about three weeks
ago. The first time I believe was my body reacting to the absence of
the anti-depressant. Once I realized what was going on, I was able to
deal with the situation by forcing myself to think more positively and
to do things that make me feel better about myself. The second low was
different. I let outside events affect me. My negative response to the
stress reinforced my negativity. The hard part here is that I realized
what I was doing to myself, but I just couldn’t make myself care. After
a while, I got tired of the self-pity party and pulled out very slowly.
That ride down to the coast was the closest I’ve come to stopping for
smokes in the past four months. Luckily, I thought of the abc’s I’d
mentally prepared for when I got to the beach. I thought ‘well, this
would be a terrible waste to smoke now when I’ve got abc’s already
prepared for later.’ Also, as I stated in my earlier post, I did the
Indi thing - told myself if I could think of three valid reasons to
smoke, then I’d do it. Of course, I couldn’t think of one.
KatieLou; On my three month quit anniversary, I wrote a post about
complacency. Actually, it was anxiety about complacency. Isn’t that
the darnest thing? I went back and read it. It’s message 1545 if you’d
like to take a look and see if it helps you if only to know that this is
something that others go through also. I remember when I wrote that
post and I used quotes and paraphrased some conversations. Steve later
told me that he didn’t care for the way he sounded when I put together
the notes from our conversation. But, you know what, it still makes
sense to me, it’s the way I heard what he said and it helped, a lot. I
guess there’s some things that will be clear to me but look muddled to
other people. Maybe it’s that touch of dyslexia 
In my opinion,
you have definitely reached the next plateau, Katie. It just takes a
little while to get comfy.
- Cat