Quitting smoking blog

Quitting smoking blog - WEEK 5

Monday, 9 Jan 06

So much for the carefully-devised system I worked out yesterday. I used the patch that I took off last night and tried to keep my consumption of gums and lozenges down. I did this by eating 4 choccies, some almonds, plenty of rice crackers, two cappuccinos and two chai lattes. During my struggle I kept telling myself, "You just have to put up with it for a while or you'll just make it harder".

By the end of the day I was feeling pretty messy, still mourning the loss of my holidays. I knew what I had to do.

When I asked for my usual Holiday 12s, Ani—the Vietnamese engineering student who's been working at the local supermarket for the last 6 years—looked shocked. "You're buying cigarettes?" she asked incredulously. "Yes," I replied with a confidence and strength hardly befitting the weakness I was indulging in. I smoked six of them in the evening.

I really don't know how I'm ever going to give these things up ...

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Tuesday, 10 Jan 06

Went to bed a bit after midnight and woke up, tossing and turning uncomfortably in the middle of a warm and humid night. After a long period of this discomfort I checked the time: 3am. I finally got up at 3:50am feeling frustrated and angry, aware that I was thinking about the 14 remaining cigs in the pack.

I turned on the PC and started surfing, made a cup of chai tea and Googled for nicotine withdrawals. There was a doctors' briefing Powerpoint about helping patients to quit and the stages they go through. I went through it and the same theme appeared over and over again—depression, depression and more depression. (The presentation was really good, far better than the patronising and manipulative pap that usually masquerades as anti-smoking material).

Reading it, I felt a wave of disgust run through me at the way nicotine fucks people up, the way it fucks me up! I wantonly chainsmoked three cigs to bring their disgustingness to sharp relief and then shredded the remainder of the pack to the point where I could not possibly roll up the debris. My lighter and pack of cigarette papers followed the destroyed cigs into the garbage.

It didn't make me feel good. I just felt angry, angry at how the effin things control me and make me sick, all the while making me feel as though they are my friends who I should miss when they're not around.

I absolutely HATE the stinking shitty lousy scumbag rotten things!! (Now I'll tell you what I really think)

Reading the doctors' Powerpoint reminded me that, no matter how much I hate the rotten things, to go cold turkey without the support of gums or lozenges will leave me a gibbering, miserable wreck. At this stage I am satisfied that patches won't work for me. My jaw is still sore from yesterday's gum chewing, so lozenges are my only option, supported by only the occasional gum. Those three cigs in the wee hours of the morning were the last I've smoked.

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Wednesday, 11 Jan 06

My anger at cigs hasn't subsided. I had a few pangs here and there but thinking of what terrible things they are kept me on the straight and narrow.

A bit more about the friend angle ... I was thinking more about how, when you quit, you feel a sense of loss as though you've lost a friend. Yet if I had a friend that depressed me and deprived me of sleep, peace and happiness every time I didn't do what he/she/it wanted me to do, would I still want to have anything to do with him/her/it?

If that friend also made me stink, made me age prematurely, turned my teeth yellow, cost me a fortune, gave doodly-squat back to me, and encouraged dependency I would pretend to be out whenever that "friend" called. I'd ignore his/her/its emails. I'd bitch about him/her/it behind his/her/its back.

In short, any "friend" who behaved like tobacco does, wouldn't be a friend at all.

I was also thinking how sad it is the way people judge junkies so harshly, accusing them of having weak character and being sub-standard human beings.

Yet, what if tobacco was illegal and was as expensive and hard-to-get as heroin? What if, in order to "score" my fix of nicotine (since nicotine replacement products would also be illegal) I had to mix with seedy outlaws?

Would a fairly respectable 9 to 5 worker like me—who has in past scoured the streets looking for butts to roll up in moments of desperation—be tempted to sell myself to get my fix? Or steal? Or break into a house? Or pawn my family's stuff? Or form relationships with tobacco dealers?

Would I go into detox and then fall back into bad habits the minute my old nicotine addict friends offered me a smoke? Would I be sent to gaol for crimes I'd committed in a frenzy of withdrawals?

Instead—with the benefit of nicotine lozenges and the occasional gum—I finished work at 5 o'clock, went to Carley's workplace, had a cup of tea with her at the sports centre cafe and played tennis, before going home, fixing myself a salad and answering some emails.

It seems ironic that I should be counting my blessings for being addicted to nicotine and not heroin! And I'll count a lot more blessings if I can rid myself of my nicotine addiction ... (apologies to Edvard Munch's dependents re: the image here).

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Thursday, 12 Jan 06

Still maintaining the rage. As I walked around the city I saw people walking and smoking or standing outside their buildings dragging on gaspers and I felt sorry for them, being caught in the grip of those foul things.

I read a bit on the net about cloves and smoking. Apparently clove cigarettes (kreteks) are 60% tobacco anyway, and pretty unhealthy, so hardly a decent alternative. Nicotine-free coltsfoot cigarettes can be smoked apparently, but I expect they'd taste like ... herbs ...

Whatever, if you get used to smoking something else it will probably only be a matter of time before you take the step back to the killer weed. Hell, I've smoked for over 30 years, so let's just call it "been there, done that".

This morning Victoria, our fill-in office manager, told me that a friend of hers was told by, of all things, a mystic on a Himalayan mountain (true!) to put a piece of clove in her mouth and sit it inside her lip. The guru said it was purifying, which makes sense since it's an antiseptic. So I've bought a pack of cloves and ... the jury's out so far.

This is the first day that I've been confident enough to write "0" in the cigs smoked panel before the day was out. Tomorrow will be the next and ...

I feel like I've reached a point where my addiction has transferred from cigarettes to lozenges and gums—like a junkie who quits heroin and becomes addicted to methadone. I'll have to start up a quitting nicotine replacement therapy blog next.

... after a few goes I'm finding this clove trick is pretty good, recommended by a few websites. Nine lozenges and four gums for the day ... oh an a few cloves.

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Black Friday, 13 Jan 06

It's Black Friday and black represents "burnt" ... as in burnt bridges, and in the current context, that means good luck to me. I was low on gums so mostly stuck with lozenges. I had eleven of them today, with 1½ gums and a few cloves.

Claire, who runs Essentially Art in the city—the place where I just printed and framed Abstract 2003-1 to canvas for Pauline—told me that she gave up years ago after a session with a hypnotherapist. She admitted that it's probably 90% self-motivation and 10% hypno, so it's not going to work if you're not ready to quit.

Apparently they get you to think of a time when you felt really happy and to use that feeling when you need it ... or something like that. I suppose when cigs have driven you into the emotional basement (sans NRT), it could come in handy.

Went to see the women's final at the Sydney International Tennis Tournament at Homebush with Carley (one of my Wed night tennis crew). Being in the unaccustomed role of spectator (I'm more of a doer than a watcher) I got by with lozenges, cloves, Soy Crisps, juice, mineral water and non-stop talking. I think Carley survived ok, even if Justine won when we were going for the underdog.

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Saturday, 14 Jan 06

Today I looked in my desk drawer and found seven boxes of matches, each one bought at a time when I failed in giving up during 2005 (usually within an hour and, at best, till after lunch). It's far from the whole story because it doesn't include the lighters I've bought at those times, nor the matches I've already used.

I thought, just for a change from my usual daily cartoon, I would arrange the matches into a picture. As I was doing the arrangement I wondered how idiotic some people would think I was for doing it, but then I figured it's not much different to my usual cartooning—just a different medium. Ok, I'm an idiot no matter which way you look at it—but at least I'm now a non-smoking idiot.

On the other hand, physically dealing with smoking accessories in this way somehow made the act of creating a simple picture more meaningful—an affirmation of my resolve to be rid of the things.

I stocked up on lozenges and gum today. The chemist, Jerry, talked about inhalers when I told him how I felt that patches don't satisfy the "actions" issues. However, we agreed that aping smoking actions with inhalers isn't ideal. I still have never seen anyone using a nicotine inhaler (at least not one lacking a burning end) and my view that it makes you look like a total gronk unchanged.

D's sister told him how she gave up 15 years ago. On the first day she only had fruit juice with vitamin C powder (the vitamin C is apparently important). On day two she only ate fruit salad. By the third day she was over the cravings. So he's going to try it because he finds the third day the problem. He's outside, smoking as I type; it looks like Mr You-Just-Have-To-Say-You're-A-Non-Smoker is taking his turn to do the relapsing. He he he ...

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Sunday, 15 Jan 06

I've heard of this happening plenty of times before and now it's happened to me—I've caught a cold or have sinusitis. It might relate to the way smoke immobilises the little hairs (cilia) that push mucous out of your lungs but it might also relate to hanging around someone with lots of germs.

It's not good timing because Dad needs to go to hospital again; apparently the tube they put down his throat when he had electroshock treatment for his heart arrhythmia has grazed his throat and now it's infected. If I'm germy with a cold, it's exactly what he doesn't need around him.

Amazingly, even after all the ranting and raving of the past few days, this morning I had some strong pangs. I could feel that nicotine-controlled part of my mind pushing me towards having a smoke when I thought of what I would do with the money I saved by giving up. It roughly followed the line, "Well, I don't need a lot of possessions, nor do I go on holidays [I have a bad sense of direction and being lost all of the time isn't much fun] and ciggies are just a pleasurable pasttime I've enjoyed. So what's life for? What does it matter in the greater scheme of things whether I smoke or not?".

My answer to myself was, "It matters because I don't want to be controlled by this thing, to be an addict". As Claire from the print shop told me, everything you do ends up revolving around cigarettes—"I'll just eat brekky and then have a cig. Then I'll go to the cafe, have a coffee and have a ciggy afterwards. I'll just have sex and then have a post-coital smoke. I'll work till 10.30am and then duck out for a gasper ...".

Anyway, I've made a T-shirt design, full of trendy distressed type, and industrial motifs (as pictured). Click the picture for a full size version ready for printing. It's pretty dirty-looking which makes for a nice contrast with last night's DVD, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

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Weekly summary

Week 6 -->