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Quitting smoking blog - WEEK 4
 Monday,
2 Jan 06
I had a number of cig bits left over from yesterday to help me
ease my way back into sensible behaviour again. They were gone
by the end of the morning. I can be such a pig when it
comes to consuming stuff. My meals always disappear in record
time. Cups of coffee are often gone in two minutes flat. When
I smoke the cigs disappear quickly, both individually and collectively.
The way I behaved with those cigarettes brought to mind that
infamous old comic strip, Captain
Goodvibes, who was, well ... a pig too.
I got back on track at lunchtime using gums, lozenges and food
as dummy substitutes. By tea time I'd given into temptation and
rummaged through my rubbish bin for my old butts to roll up. I
dried the tobacco out under foil with a lighter, a method used
to dry out other smoking substances by people rather less virtuous
than me—like Captain Goodvibes, for example (although, technically
speaking, he is not a "person", being a pig and all
...)
In hindsight I can see that I'd deliberately avoided emptying
my bin as a fallback, although I'd rationalised to myself that
I could do it later. I know I'm not the only one doing this grubby stuff because an old friend
who was homeless for a while used to rummage through bins and
roll up tobacco from old butts too. See
this blog about a person who also did this during times of hardship (his 20 Nov 2004 entry).
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Rant interlude
I just found a site called Halfbakery,
where people can put forward their bright ideas to be assessed
by others. One person put forward the same idea as I did
recently—that cigs should be sold singly so that,
if you crack, you don't crack badly. I couldn't believe
the number of self-righteous bastards who replied!
- ... you could
spend a week doing voluntary work in a lung cancer ward.
That might help?
- Don't you
see, it's only kids who would use this. Adults who insist
on death by self-induced cancer can afford to do it a
pack at a time.
- It's only
as difficult as you make it. Break it down to the simplest
form. Which is: You know how when you smoke? Don't
- Kill yourself
slowly ! We don't need you anyway.
- Just stop.
Don't pander to it. Just stop. It really is that simple.
- Why not eviscerate
someone recently deceased from lung cancer? Dissect their
lungs and lick the tar out for yourself. You should get
the same pleasurable high?
These odes to stupidity—and, at times, outright hostility—highlight
one of the biggest problems in society today. Too many people
seem incapable of understanding a very simple fact; human
beings are diverse.
We have different backgrounds, needs, feelings, views,
strengths, weaknesses, brain chemistry, bodies etc. Since
we are not all the same, some people are more susceptible
to addiction than others. Duh! It's generally less about
character and willpower than it is about chemistry. I suppose
The Judgemental Ones throw their stones in the hope that
we will all be terribly impressed with their superior character
and willpower. It's simple, dumb, oneupsmanship borne of
unresolved inferiority complexes.
Despite my "weak character" strength I gave up
a 25-year pot dependency six years ago just like that.
I wanted to quit it and I did. Easy. But I would never be
arrogant enough to tell a hopeless pot-head "Just stop.
It really is that simple" or "Just go to a mental
ward". And not even I am nasty (and sociopathic) enough
to tell them to kill themselves slowly ...
 I
have waded through hardships in my life that would have
crushed these peanut-heads into peanut butter. However,
I am an addict—a hard core nicotine addict. That's
why the smokes keep screwing me up, not because I can't
cope with a discomfort.
I am soooooo exasperated with the way nicotine continually
makes a monkey out of me, time and time again. I am becoming
especially fed up with being so desperate that I stoop to
pulling butts out of my bin to smoke »»
So yeah, these dumb jerks really get my goat with their
glib, self-serving blather! (now I'll tell you what I really
think). Still, to be fair, there was one comment in the
forum that I found illuminating:
- Individual cigarettes don't have Tax Stamp on them. In U.S. - each
State has its own Tax Rate on Tobacco and therefore Tax Stamp. If ciggies are loose - there is no proof it is
that States own blah blah blah.
I'd wondered if my
poker machine cartoon
on Week 3 was off-the-mark, especially
with today's news headline about a study by the Australian
Medical Journal saying that smoking costs the Australian
health system over $700 million p.a.
However, when you look at the maths it is clear that governments
has an agenda in outlawing the sale of single cigarettes.
Smoking costs $700m in health costs but it generates over
$3b in revenue.
So the "single-cigs-are-priced-for-kids" line
is a furphy, peddled by government to justify their immoral
revenue-raising. After all, there are heavy penalties for
shopkeepers to sell cigarettes to minors, so the difference
is very minor, especially since kids are much more affluent
these days. |
Tuesday, 3 Jan 06
 I am back on the horse today. I put on a patch this morning.
I stuck the patch in the lower area of my shoulder blade. Not easy to reach but it makes sense to put them in hard-to-get places while I'm on holidays and wearing skimpier tops.
I had to put Leukoplast tape around the edges to keep it on in this humid summer weather.
During the course of the day the patch crumpled enough to suggest that, without the tape it would have fallen off.
I then spent the next few hours cleaning up my flat, which is a good non-smoking option, and long overdue. I am having half-nicorette gums after meals to keep my oral thing a bit satisfied.
Had coffee with Warren, who showed me some amazing CSS templates on www.oswd.org
which I may use to revamp this site. No pangs at all thanks to the patch and the occasional half Nicorette gum, which I chomp on solely for the oral thing.
Even after an Indian dinner with D, I felt pretty well in control. We started arguing about my attitude towards him for not giving up with me as we'd agreed last month. He bought a pack of Winnie Blues but then, when we arrived home he threw them in my flat's garbage bin—an almost full pack! So it seems that he's given up(?). Hope so. I felt bad about the wasted cigs and felt it would be better if they went to a homeless person than just thrown out. I may yet go trawling through bins again ...
Watched the Crying Game video, which was pretty amazing (I missed a lot of the big movies in the early 90s). The film, combined with the patch, got my mind racing when I went to bed but at least I didn't have any of those ultra-vivid dreams I usually have with patches. I woke up with my mind racing, for some reason worrying about the misogyny of the film, which of course is actually over-analytical nonsense.
Patches are weird.
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Wednesday, 4 Jan 06
Well, I fished out the cigs ... shock! horror! I smoked a few (too many) ... shock! horror! Meanwhile D abstained all day so this is the first time that he has smoked less than me. Lacking an available hobo, I left the pack on a seat in Newtown. Did coffee with Ray, no drama or pangs again. I've had too many gums though, since you shouldn't use patches when you smoke in the morning, and now my jaw hurts a bit (again).
 My South African email friend, Ona-Lynne, told me of a gem of an experience she had when trying to give up smoking:
The last time I tried to quit my Mom was still alive. The second day I started shaking & felt really foul, so she suggested I get a packet of prunes (she failed to mention I should chew???? on the pips)!
Anyway I had my nose in a good book & after a while of reading and eating prunes I realized the rather large packet was EMPTY - I had chowed the whole dang packet in little more than an hour!!! Can you possibly guess where I spent the next TWO days??? Needless to say, during the 2 days I sat on the throne the "little room" was so blue with smoke that the fire dept was nearly called in & I decided to give up giving up smoking.....now I want to try again - this time WITHOUT prunes.
I have never heard of this form of, er, therapy, but I did find a South African quit smoking website http://sanep.experthealth.co.za/live/content.php?Item_ID=319 (is this a South African thing?) which says:
How does one cope with the cravings and increased appetite and thus prevent weight gain?
- Remember, a craving only lasts a few minutes. Some times just being patient and holding out until the craving passes will help.
- Muscle tissue has a voracious appetite for kilojoules. You can boost your metabolic rate by including one or two weight training sessions into your exercise program.
- Don't crash diet. If you eat too few kilojoules, the body will respond by lowering the metabolism even more and end up becoming a fat storage machine when you do eat.
- It can be tricky telling the difference between hunger pangs and withdrawal cravings. Get into the habit of 'listening' to your body before you decide to eat something.
- Find ways other than eating to cope with withdrawal cravings. Some people drink water, while others count to 100 or go for a brief walk outside or take 10 deep breaths.
- Put non-edible items in your mouth if oral cravings bother you. For example, you could use toothpicks or cinnamon sticks, or chew on sugarless gum.
- If you need to snack, keep low fat, low kilojoule foods on hand such as yoghurt, fresh fruit, dried fruit, popcorn, vegetable crudités and breakfast cereals.
- Keep blood glucose levels stable by eating balanced, regular meals.
- Always have breakfast within 2 hours of waking, such as breakfast cereal, yoghurt or milk and fresh fruit.
- Follow an 80/20 rule to nourishment by aiming to choose healthy foods 80 percent of the time, while leaving room for indulgence.
- Drink less caffeine. Try to avoid drinking beverages that contain caffeine, such as sodas and coffee. Nicotine withdrawal will make you feel jittery and nervous, and the caffeine may only make nicotine withdrawal worse. Rather go for herbal teas, or natural coffees like bamboo or chicory or even chai tea. Diluted fruit juice is very nourishing.
- Get enough sleep. When you feel tired, you are more likely to crave cigarettes and food. • Stay well hydrated by drinking water with all meals and snacks.
- Eat a prune and keep the pip in your mouth – it keeps the tongue busy.
- Put lip-ice in you pocket or where cigarettes are normally kept and put it on when desire to smoke strikes.
This suggestion makes a bit more sense than scoffing a whole bag of the blighters - ROFL! I'm wondering if her Mum told her that sticking a football in her mouth would help, whether she would have unquestioningly have done it (bearing in mind that I'd have probably done the same). Oh gee, I shouldn't laugh ... it must have been awful for her ... poor thing ... hehehe
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Thursday, 5 Jan 06
Very quiet day. Played tennis with D and then had lunch at Newtown. D made a few "gee, it would be good ..." comments but he really is doing incredibly well—and without the regular flow of gums and lozenges that I'm consuming. I should be doing patches instead but I'm struggling with my usual desire to pack anything I can lay my hands on into my mouth.
My South African friend (the prune lady) has just emailed to say she's giving up. Below is my reply, which may prove handy for you too, my dear non-existent reader:
 It's a pity you are allergic to patches—even more a pity that you're not allergic to cigs so that you never got stuck with the habit!
So ok, as u say, gum seems the be the way to go ... but beware ... you can get a really sore jaw if you overdo it. As you would have gathered from my blog I am the kind of person who simply MUST do something with their mouth every waking moment. So when I gave up I used the gum for a few years I chewed day and night. I ended up with a terribly sore jaw, which also brought on headaches (the old sinus-jaw link) and that was a big factor in me resuming smoking - at first i was doing it to relieve the jaw pain.
However, I since heard that gum needs to be thought of, not as gum, but as patches for the mouth. So instead of chewing like a bloody cow you need to give it a few chews and then stick it somewhere in your gum. Also, these days there are lozenges on the market and they are good to alternate with the gum. I find the gum good after meals, doing a bit of the ole post-prandial digestive work that cigs used to do. My current approach is, if I don't especially feel like a gum I have a lozenge - and if I can't face a lozenge, I have a gum. Sometimes I think it's a good idea to have half-lozenges.
A friend told me that he started on 15 gums a day on the first week, 14 on the following week, etc until he didn't need them any more. I'm too chaotic a human being to be so orderly, which is why I was addicted to the gum for a few years, but maybe you are more together(?).
As for the prunes ... as the website said - just ONE prune and then keep the pip in your mouth so you don't inadvertently end up participating in extreme digestive system sports
I relate to your tea fetish. I don't only drink lots of tea, but also have a cappuccino fetish, and recently added chai lattes to me repertoire, so remember ... there's always someone more screwed-up than you :)
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Friday, 6 Jan 06
It's the last day of my holidays, alas alas. I'm finding myself looking for compensatory comforts—like you-know-what, but all I am allowing myself are the usual non-smoke nicotine treats. I tried Ona-Lynne's prune method (just one) but my mouth quickly rejected the pip as a lousy "minder". The good news is that, armed with my new pack of the purple poo-makers, I am now guaranteed a regular new year. It's been hard going although my search for new lollies lead to my discovery of passionfruit-flavoured Tic-Tacs ... mmm-mmmm!
Speaking of Ona-Lynne, she's kindly passed on another of her youthful misadventures of failed restraint ...
 Many years ago during one of my efforts to "give up" I decided not to have even a butt on the premises so I duly made sure there wasn't even a scrap of tobacco anywhere around.
Well, by the following morning I was clawing up the wall and really started hunting for a butt, scrap, anything.......?? I was desperate & rather unhinged I suspect. Then I noticed the veggie rack in the kitchen.....hmmmm......tobacco is a plant, in fact a leaf.....so.....would other leaves help???
I attacked the cabbage & removed one of the drier, outer leaves. Aahhhh - my agony would soon cease (or so my addled brain figured).
Crushing the leaf & trying to roll it into some sort of a ciggie in newspaper ...to heck with the fact that ink is supposed to be poisonious...was really awkward. I was delirious with anticipation. When I lit it the stench was awful but I persevered & at last kept it going and had a few good, hard drags at my homegrown, homemade ciggie!
Just writing about it now, 20 odd years down the line has my innards heaving at the thought. I highly recommend giving someone who has OD'd a cabbage ciggie - it works better than any stomach pump!!!! It also made me turn a delicate shade of green for the rest of the day. The moral of this tale is clearly: "a leaf is not just a leaf". Just as well she didn't try oleander leaves!
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Saturday, 7 Jan 06
Max stayed overnight on the fold-out bed last night so that kept me on the straight and narrow since he would have hassled me no end if he caught me smoking. I put on an old patch to keep the nicotine levels up, without it being too strong.
Then we went to Paddy's Markets, before going back to the fam's place. Dad was there and we took a local person's Airedale pup for a walk. They're cute breed and the pup basically looks like an elongated teddy bear. At one stage the patch fell off and the next moment I was dragging the thing out of the puppy's mouth! Lucky we caught him or he may have been poisoned, or worse, starting looking for butts to eat.
 Had dinner at Karl & Judith's. Everyone I've seen today has been a non-smoker, which always helps. This, along with gums, lozenges, nibblies and drinks kept the pangs to a minimum. Still, while we watched a DVD of the original (1927) King Kong movie, I couldn't help thinking that Kong's long, squared-off teeth looked a bit like large filterless cigarettes ...
I had a moment of truth as I drove back home and passed a late night service station. It would have been sooo easy to just buy a pack and ... but I made the choice not to do it. I've behaved quite well for several days now and didn't want to undo that good work.
Tomorrow I plan to go back to patches. Since the weather people are predicting a humid day I will need to work hard to hold the patch on; a few thumb tacks should do the trick ...
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Sunday, 8 Jan 06
 Today's patch is on my left side, about 6cm under my underarm. The morning was fine, as was lunch with my friend Pauline, another non-smoker. The first real pangs happened as I walked home.
It was when I was alone at home during the afternoon that I started getting tetchy. I was fiddling around, trying to create some abstract digital art, all the while eating half-Nicorette gums, pumpkin seeds, dried peaches and brazil nuts. They helped, but not much.
After all that oral activity I eventually had a nasty "altercation" with the toilet and by 6pm I was forced to clean the car (as rare an occurrence as solar eclipses) to stay sane(?).
7pm—I am feeling miserable since I have only five or so conscious hours left before I'm back onto the work treadmill. I would feel less miserable if I was smoking, but then again that would make me feel lousy for caving in after doing well over the past few days ...
10pm—I went to the car, emptied the ashtry, and rolled up the tobocco from the butts into two small, rather burnt-tasting, cigarettes.
It seems that I am more susceptible to cracking when I use patches than the gums and lozenges. I need a new strategy because patches just don't do the trick. One option is to use low strength patches and then have limited amounts of gums and lozenges—and then very gradually cut down á la Warren.
No, the patches aren't doing it for me at all.
I need a new plan.
Since gums are hard on my jaw, that means I can't have too many and will have to fill the breach with lozenges. This is a draft plan for quitting:
- Plan 2 -
- Week 01 — 6 gums, 9 lozenges
- Week 02 — 6 gums, 8 lozenges
- Week 03 — 5 gums, 8 lozenges.
- Week 04 — 5 gums, 7 lozenges
- Week 05 — 4 gums, 7 lozenges
- Week 06 — 4 gums, 6 lozenges
- Week 07 — 4 gums, 5 lozenges
- Week 08 — 4 gums, 4 lozenges
- Week 09 — 3 gums, 4 lozenges
- Week 10 — 3 gums, 3 lozenges
- Week 11 — 3 gums, 2 lozenges
- Week 12 — 2 gums, 2 lozenges
- Week 13 — 2 gums, 1 lozenge
- Week 14 — 2 gums
- Week 15 — 1 gum
- Week 16 — ½ gum (about 3 gums in the week)
- Week 17 — ...
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Weekly summary
| Day |
Cigs |
| Monday |
6 |
| Tuesday |
0 |
| Wednesday |
11 |
| Thursday |
4 |
| Friday |
0 |
| Saturday |
0 |
| Sunday |
1.5 |
| Total |
22.5 |
Week 5 --> |
