Quitting smoking blog

Quitting smoking blog - WEEK 7

Monday, 23 Jan 06

Had a strange dream last night in which I was a psychic (as opposed to my more usual “psycho” state of mind).

I was at the house of a very tall, unshaven man and he seduced me (such a pushover!). When we kissed this weird tunnel of moving images, like the view through a periscope, appeared in my mind. This, of course(?), made me realise that we was using me to channel this info from me for some criminal activity. Probably to located hidden contraband.

I broke off from the kiss and he started heavying me, so I ran. He cornered me so I threw a baseball bat at him which hit him on the head with a “clunk”, but he barely flinched.

I took advantage of his momentary disorientation to run around a corner and then I woke up, with him running past my cunning detour.
Freudians, do your best! It was all really vivid, like a “patches dream”, but I’m still on gums and lozenges. I woke from it feeling washed out.

Back to reality, the handsome young guy who works in the cafe next door told me he’d given up cold turkey three months ago after he and his uncle made a $300 bet. The first to crack coughs up, so to speak. So far no-one’s paid.

Even though he had only been smoking for five years he said he was very edgy for the first week. The addiction bites hard pretty quickly!

He only held firm because he couldn’t afford to pay up if he lost. He stopped drinking, gave up coffee, ate lots of lollies and stopped seeing his friends for a month. His withdrawals started settling down after about a week or so.

By contrast, my former smoking pal in IT, Hightowers, is planning to give up next Monday, after he returns from a three-day party/binge out in the country that ends on Sunday. It will be his third attempt. He gets pretty cranky when he gives up, so he’s using the patches.

He saves money by cutting up the patches because lower strength patches cost about the same as the high strength ones. So when he reaches the point where he can use the low strength ones, he will cut the strong ones in half to save money.

He cracked in his last attempt because he went to lower strength patches too early so this time he’s going to follow the program. He will deal with the 14mg patch phase by cutting the 21mg patches into 2/3 and 1/3 pieces.

This means he’ll need to stick them on with tape. Last time he quit he used gaffa tape to holf the patches on (the curse of being a musician) but he will—if he listens to me—use Leukoplast this time so he doesn’t end up with big sticky patches on his arms that, well, stick around.

Mr Groin has previously told me that the bottom edge of the patch is the most important part to keep stuck on, because much of the nicotine settles down there after a while.

The older fellow who owns the cafe where I buy my chai lattes told me today, “It’s all about willpower”. I said no, it’s about desire—wanting to give up”. As you know, that’s how it was for me. The only willpower I’ve shown has been in persevering in the face of repeated relapses.

I doubt that most people who are severely addicted can rely on willpower alone; they need strong motivation. To really, really WANT to give up. Perhaps the line between willpower and motivation is blurred?

I guess, now that I have stopped, maybe it will take willpower to deal with any extraordinary situation that tempts me to the point where I forget my new-found dislike of cigs?

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Tuesday, 24 Jan 06

Started a grad cert course today (which is kind of cool for someone as unlettered as me), which will ensure that my life will be even more chaotic than usual for the next 1½ years. I met a guy there with a relative who is on methadone. She's been on ultra-low dose for two years now and everyone keeps telling her to take the final step, but she's too afraid. I see an analogy there ...

I arrived home 15 minutes ago. I felt really hungry so I had a small bowl of grapes. I was still hungry after that and just two minutes ago grabbed a handful of almonds to nibble on as I type today's entry. As I ate the first nut, I had the strongest feeling that they wouldn't be enough—that they would leave me feeling incomplete.

I feel a strong need to place a "full-stop" on this round of oral consumption to feel satiated. All smokers and ex-smokers know that desire for the nicotine-stained full-stop. I feel like my choices at the moment are:

1. more food
2. a cup of tea
3. a nicotine product.

Since I'm trying to reduce my nicotine intake, I've opted for a few low-calorie savoury biscuits and a cup of green chai tea instead of a nicotine thing.

This little cycle of satisfying self-directed urges started the grapes at 6.00pm. I "cracked" and had a lozenge ar 6.35pm. The feeling I had trying to resist the NRT was startlingly like the battles I've had with cigarettes themselves.

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Wednesday, 25 Jan 06

I have now started tallying my daily nicotine gums and lozenges. At the end of Week 4 I'd come up with abitrary guesswork numbers for how many nico-lollies I should have each week. What I really need to do is work out how many I'm actually consuming first before working out a reduction plan.

I started today with eight gums and seven lozenges in my bag. By 10.20pm, as I write this I have one gum and two lozenges left. I think I need a strategy to deal with the mouth issue.

Prior to becoming a smoker, I was a nail biter. I wasn't one to chew the things down to the bone like some, but I did sometimes gnaw on the nails and cuticles to the point where it hurts. Still, it shows that my mouth has been a busy little orifice for pretty well all of my life.

It's now 12.10am and it's one gum and one lozenge, courtesy of a lot of savoury biscuits, more nuts and the forgotten cloves.

Here's a a clove update, since the observant of you may have noticed they dropped off the radar after featuring heavily in Week 5.

I stopped using them as alternative oral pacifiers (dummies?) because 1) if you chew them too early you can get sharp bits stuck in your gums and 2) they really do make your mouth numb after a while! The answer may be to avoid chewing them for as long as possible so they get soft rather than splintery, which also means they will release their numbing agent (eugenol) more slowly.

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Australia Day , 26 Jan 06

No violence occurred at Cronulla Beach today, despite some dodgy fascist types calling for anti-brown people demonstrations to be held there. A girl won an Aussie Day award for community work, including helping with the Cancer Council's anti-smoking campaign. Ok, that's Australia Day out of the way.

Now here's some fascinating reading ... it's 7:30pm and I have had three gums and four lozenges. I thought you'd be excited.

Spent the morning surfing and working on images. Hd afternoon tea at Newtown with Danburger, Maximus, Saveloy and Meri. Meri is a light smoker who says she only smokes for calming purposes and, I suspect, for after-dinner.

I'm using two methods to cut down on my nicotine intake. Firstly, by having the occasional lolly or clove instead of NRT. I definitely recommend only sucking the cloves. Chewing really is the wrong way to do it, at least for the first ten minutes or so. Secondly, I'm sometimes biting off half-gums (as in nicotine gums, not the things holding in my teeth) instead of chewing full ones.

Mr Groin and I had a game of tennis and then strapped on the old feedbag at the local Thai. A couple of hours later we were listening to the boilover Australian Open tennis match where Marcus Baghdatis beat David Nalbandian. I reached over for his Winfield Blues, took one out and said "got a light?". He was horrified until I laughed. But the scary thing is that picking up the packet and pulling out the cigarette felt so natural, so automatic.

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Friday, 27 Jan 06

The other day I bought a packet of 4mg lozenges instead of my usual 2mg. They cost the same so I figured that I could just bite them in half and save money. However, Ms Dodo-Head has just noticed that she's been scoffing full 4mg lozenges!

I only realised this morning because the writing on the back of each slab is black rather than blue. So today I'm doing half lozenges. They're pretty hard so I'm hoping I don't do in a tooth!

Did coffee with Karlos after work and he wondered if drinking might be my biggest danger now. I doubted there were any dangers—apart from the famous "just one won't hurt" blunder. On the other hand, maybe a few drinks is the kind of thing to bring on a "just one won't hurt" state of mind.

Apparently Japanese scientists have discovered a gene called CYP2A6 that determines how likely a person is to become addicted to nicotine. It urns out that nicotine is actually a poison which is produced by tobacco plants to protect itself from insects by unnaturally stimulating their nerve cells.

But what kills little insects feels pretty good to big animals like us and it actually makes changes to way the brain works. In short, this means that many of us are addicted to insecticide.

They say that in nature, the gene CYP2A6, provides natural defence against nicotine by breaking it down into a less harmful chemical. Ironically, this means that people with this natural genetic defence get more addicted to nicotine than those who don't because they break nicotine down more quickly, meaning they will need their next nicotine fix more quickly.

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Saturday, 28 Jan 06

The circle turns. Over a year ago Mr Groin and I were seeing a movie at Burwood and I was having a smoke after dinner. Mr Groin, who was ostensibly a non-smoker then asked me for a cigarette.

I told him no at first, hardly believing that he wanted one, but when he persisted I gave him one. Apparently he had been having the occasional cigarette in his late night fishing sessions with his mate, Poit. From there, after four years of purity, Mr Groin went rapidly down the slippery slope of smokerdom.

Tonight we saw another film, Keeping Mum (which was pretty ordinary), at Burwood and after dinner I was hanging out for a smoke. We had a few minutes to kill and sat outside the very church where he smoked that fateful cigarette. He lit up. I'd filled up on Chinese food and a cigarette would have really helped dinner go down. So as he smoked, I chewed a nicotine gum. So the circle didn't quite turn—but the temptation was there.

As it is, I've had a truckload of gums and lozenges today. I've always tended to go berserk with the cigs on weekends so it's no surprise.

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Sunday, 29 Jan 06

Tennis in the morning. A few times I passed by Mr Groin's pack of lung lollies and felt a twinge but that's all. Joined Jut & Karlos at Clovelly beach, the first time I've gone to the beach for maybe two years. I forgot about the way you always want a smoke after coming out of the water and I had a deja vu pang.

At one stage Jut wondered if we'd meet a friend of Karlos' for a drink after the swim and I had a moment Karlos Made a salad, updated K's website and did some domestics this evening—no great excitement or temptations there.

Still maniacally stuffing my face with nicotine replacement confection. I looked at some studies in regard to the effects of long term use of NRT. The good news is that a large study showed that there is no evidence that NRT increases the chances of being afflicted with myocardial infarction, stroke, and death (the latter being of special concern).

The bad news is that NRT increases the chances of insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia (ie. too much insulin is in your blood, which isn't diabetes as such but can lead to it).

Then again, being over 40 is perhaps the biggest risk factor for type 2 diabetes, and that's ok since I'll be 39 years old for many years yet ...

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Weekly summary
(Cigarettes = 0, of course)

Ave per day = 6 gums, 4½ lozenges

Week 8 -->