Progress report

Thanks to all those who have offered their encouragement and support over the last few days. This experience has certainly been one of the foremost challenges in my life so far, but I am still committed to success in becoming a non-smoker; and it gets a little bit easier every day.
I had still been somewhat reliant on chewing nicotine gum to help me through the withdrawal symptoms and cigarette cravings, but two days ago I had three pieces and yesterday I had one. Quite the fast-track for this nicorette-chewer. Sure, it definitely helped get me through those first couple of days, and yes, I do still enjoy having a piece of it, but that's exactly the problem at this point. I don't believe it should be a 12 week step-down program like the little instruction manual suggests.

As I see it, there are two parts to cigarette addiction: chemical addiction, and addiction to the act of smoking and it's frequency in your life. Nicorette helps with the latter; you break the "habit" before the chemical addiction, but, while it's a great first step, you are not even dealing with the chemical addiction yet. For me, this is the key.. As a smoker, every time the level of nicotine in your body drops, you start to feel the withdrawal symptoms, (read: "need" to have a smoke) and correct that feeling by smoking. You are a professional junky who knows your nicotine levels at all times. So, you break the habit, but you are still experiencing nicotine withdrawal symptoms, so you correct those feelings by chewing nicorette instead.... and at every craving, you are reminded that you are quitting. You are reminded that your nicotine level is dropping and while you've corrected that problem by smoking for so long, now you must chew gum instead. You're still addicted! Only now you can't get your fix from your dearly beloved friend "smokes"!
So, I think today might be my first actual nicotine-free day. With only a 2mg dose yesterday, that's about the same as having one cigarette; except I haven't had one of those in 8 days!
I don't think it will be all that difficult, and I'm looking forward to ridding myself of nicotine completely. Quitting smoking is miserable, and that's exactly why I'm doing it. At the moment, life without those little bastards seems pretty boring and uninteresting, but in fact the opposite is true.. I've just got to get to a point that I don't keep thinking about smoking as my nicotine level fluctuates throughout the day. Only when it is gone will I start to forget about smoking.. no longer will chemical addiction remind me of smoking cigarettes. A little less than 72 hours from now, my body will have miraculously flushed itself of all of that shit.. and good riddance.