Thanks for the link, Jenny. It was funny, but I don't think that I will be going for the brain injury any time soon.

The only update I really have is that I'm still smoke free!
Woohoo!

So it's been a few days since I've posted about quitting smoking. Usually this means you're thinking that I've had all I could take of the hardship that is quitting and have gone back to the habit. And usually this would be correct.

Except this is a most unusual circumstance. 7+ days now, and not one cigarette! Woohoo!

The first three days were insanely tough. I hit the 72 hour mark of the detox stage while I was driving through West Virginia on my way to ski. Just knowing that I had made it the three days and that the nicotine was out of my system was enough to stymie my need for a cigarette for a while (which was nice.)

The trip was very calm and relaxing, with much time spent in the hot tub, or the sauna, or falling down on the ski slopes, or sitting in front of a nice fire with my girlfriend.

The only time that I wanted a cigarette at all was when we went to the club to see DJ Jazzy Jeff spin, and I had a couple drinks and everyone in there was smoking. Triggers + presence = hard to resist the craving, but I managed to, and now I know that I can safely go out with friends and not relapse.

Well thanks for reading again, and thanks for the support I've received over the past few days.
I'll be back with an update sometime soon.

PEACE!

This is so completely easy. I can't believe that I didn't do this before. Man, this is a breeze. I think everyone should quit smoking.

Now that I'm done lying to you and myself, here's the scoop. This detox is tough. I've more or less lost control of my emotions after I eat, when I'm riding in a car, after watching a movie. Any time that I used to stand up and say, "Hey, it's cigarette time! Let's go smoke kids!" sends me into a fierce battle with my brain. Even right now, just typing this makes me want to go, find a butt out on the porch, light it up and suck whatever rain water infested nicotine is still left in it right out of it.

Luckily for me, I can still think that this is a bad idea. Any nicotine at all, even one cigarette would completely undo the last thirty three hours of not smoking, along with the days and weeks of mental prep. The only problem is that it seems like I'm about halfway through the first task of breaking the nicotine addiction, and as soon as I'm done with that comes the process of recalibrating my brain.

I never realized that it would mess with my chemicals so much to try to withdraw from this substance until I was laying on my girlfriends couch and she was asking me which food she thought we should take on our ski trip, and I just burst out crying. That was embarrassing, but that's how I've felt lately. To all my former smokers out there, any idea how long this will last? Because yelling at people because I want a cigarette is not really what I would like to be doing.

Average guest at work: "Hey, can I get a Pepsi?"
Me: "GO TO HELL!"

I really don't want that internal monologue to become a reality.
Also, I've had trouble with words that end in -gue. I've been typing monolouge, and tounge. I wonder if that is a side effect.

Also, to Gin, I'm doing this as a way of trying to take stress off our relationship in the long run. I'm very sorry that I've been really irritable / crying on your couch today. I promise that this might improve sometime soon. And please don't be mad at me if I get grumpy. I really do love you.

Also, here is some reading material for me. You can stop reading right here, but I've been posting this stuff so I have all of my resources in one spot.

Also, I've been posting a lot just to keep my fingers busy, I hear that helps.

Also, I really need to learn how to do a bulleted list in HTML.




Successful nicotine dependency recovery is in maintaining the motivations, dreams and patience needed to allow: (1) the physical mind time to re-sensitize itself and re-adjust to functioning normally again; (2) the subconscious mind time to encounter and re-condition the bulk of its nicotine feeding cues that triggered brief anxiety episodes in an attempt to gain compliance; and (3) the conscious mind time to either allow years of defensive dependency rationalizations to fade into distant memory, or the intelligent quitter time to more rapidly destroy their impact through honest reflection.

The ex-smoker will find themselves enjoying a deep and rich sense of inner quiet, calmness, and tranquility once their temporary journey of re-adjustment is substantially complete.

The body's nicotine reserves decline by about half every two hours. It's not only the basic chemical half-life clock which determines mandatory nicotine feeding times, when quitting it's also the clock that determines how long it takes before the brain begins bathing in nicotine free blood-serum, the moment that real healing begins.

It can take up to 72 hours for the blood-serum to become nicotine-free and 90% of nicotine's metabolites to exit the body via your urine. It's then that the anxieties associated with readjustment normally peak in intensity and begin to gradually decline.

But just one powerful "hit" of nicotine and you’ll again face another 72 hours of detox anxieties. It's why the one puff survival rate is almost zero. None of us are stronger than nicotine but then we don’t need to be as it is simply a chemical with an I.Q. of zero. It does not plot, plan or conspire and is not some demon within us. Our most effective weapon against it is, and always has been, our vastly superior intelligence but only if put to work.

"Many smokers find it difficult to quit smoking, and it may take two or three attempts before they are finally able to quit. Although relapse rates are most common in the first few weeks or months after quitting, people who stop smoking for 3 months are often able to remain cigarette-free for the rest of their lives."

I found that in a quit-smoking resource while I was cruising for methods today. I've been trying to keep busy today, doing laundry, straightening, trying to get organized, and eventually quitting all of that and playing video games, posting here. The biggest problem that I am having is that I am now hungry, and want nothing more than to just eat, and eat.

Well now I know that three months is what it will probably take, and I'm at 21hours. So this may be a work in progress.

Well, I'm off to go for a short walk to get this off of my mind.

I haven't had a cigarette, but I'm fighting hard. I've chewed about half a pack of gum, drank about three cups of tea, and tried to keep away from smoking areas. The trip to b-dubs to meet up with Ginny and her friend Nathan, fried food and a smoking environment were a bit tempting.

I think the hardest part I am having trouble with right now is just trying to get the chemicals out of my body. I'm about to brew a few more cups of tea just to try to flush out my system, drink some more water, and take some NyQuil (scratchy throat.) I know tomorrow is going to be a rough day filled with the feeling of my brain being replaced by cotton balls. I already feel grouchy enough to start fights over nothing, as I just realized I almost did with girlfriend a minute ago.

All I want is just one cigarette to clear my head for a minute, and then I'll go back to quitting. But I know that if I indulge myself this, then it will be easy to say, "well two a day isn't too terribly bad," and then I'll be back up to a pack a day before February. So time to indulge in some Buddhist breathing techniques and drink some tea packed with valerian root and pass out.

Until tomorrow.

I just finished what I hope to be my last cigarette. What I need to be my last cigarette. What I want to be my last cigarette. I should have never picked up the habit. The smell from the acrid blue smoke is still hanging in my nose, and the taste of the tobacco is still sitting on my tongue, and here I am starting this journal about quitting.

I hope that I have the willpower. I've read a million "quit smoking" websites, and they tell me not to be too surprised if my willpower breaks and I fail the first couple of times that I quit. So I will not be surprised. I will be ashamed, though. I'm ashamed that I have to keep a log to quit something that I knew was bad for me, and addictive, when I started. I'm as ashamed as I would be if I was here telling the world and all of my friends that I was trying to quit smoking crack, because crack is a bad idea. I know the question that everyone is going to ask, or has asked.

"Well why did you start?"

I started smoking at a party on May 5th, 2003, nearly four years ago. In a moment of extremely drunk decision making, I saw one of my friends light up a cigarette and I decided to try one. In the interest of self-destruction, I decided then that I would become a smoker, just as my parents before me had been. Almost everyone I knew or loved at the time smoked, or at some point smoked, so the idea didn't seem that repulsing. I was nineteen years old, and I wasn't thinking of any life plans, I was thinking of image and self gratification.

And for a while, it was good. I spent many fun nights that summer with other friends that smoked, staying up all night and enjoying our lives over cigarettes on the stairs. I kept telling myself that I would quit when it was time, but then I never did, and here I am almost four years later, wishing I had never started. So now I'm quiting, the hard route for tonight, cold turkey. We'll see about nicotine replacement therapies if my will gets to be too weak.

So why am I quitting? All of the people that I used to smoke with are either gone from my life, or have quit, or are no longer smoking buddies. The whole nation seems to be going smoke free, and this seems like a positive route to join. Cancer, disease, colds, the flu, respiratory infections. To strengthen my life, and my life with my girlfriend. To strengthen myself, and to be healthy and active again. To strengthen my mental frame and not be owned by an addiction any more. To save the 100+$ (pack a day)I spend on tobacco every month. To be able to live life without thinking "man, I could use a cigarette" during every movie, tv show, dinner, drive to work, etc. To get rid of the smell, to get rid of the taste, to get rid of the dehydration. This is just the start of the list.

So I have the history, and the reasons, and hopefully the tools. I promise to be honest with everyone who reads this, of the ups and downs, highs and lows. I ask solemnly for your support, and understanding as I might be a little touchy as I go about this. Thank you in advance.

I love you Gin, see you on your 97th birthday.