Thursday - August 02, 2012

One Week In Or Another

Depending on how I look at it, I’ve made it through either my first or second week of quitting smoking.

I stopped around the 18th of July, and wore those nicotine patches for several days. But when I went to visit my mother for a few days on the 22nd, she who smokes like the proverbial chimney, I did a little backsliding. Over the course of a 3 day visit I think I smoked about 8 of her horrible Kent III cardboard cigarettes. They’re the super low tar kind, probably because there is next to no tobacco in them at all, and I swear they’re made from recycled newsprint soaked in tobacco juice then oven cured. That’s when I realized that the patches didn’t do much of anything. At best they helped me start breaking the smoking cycle and the finger habits. Well, maybe not even that, as I quickly found myself “smoking” a pen cap while I drove, manipulating a bit of carrot between my fingers, and finally just holding onto, smelling, breathing through, and chewing on, an unlit cigar. And that’s what it really took to get me past the urges.

So it’s been 14-16 days since I first made any kind of effort, but it’s now been 9 days since I’ve actually put anything in my face and set a match to it.

What they say about time dilation is absolutely correct. This past 2 weeks has lasted about 2 months. It’s not like the hours or minutes have dragged slowly by, but it’s as if the days have an extra 5 or 6 hours in them. And perhaps that’s a good thing! I’m getting up earlier, I’m sleeping better, I’m out for a 1+ mile walk every morning when it isn’t steaming hot or raining, and I’m doing my best not to binge eat.  My lungs and sinuses feel better, but 40 years worth of damage isn’t going away overnight. Or ever perhaps. But the constant phlegm level is down quite a bit. My sense of smell isn’t much better yet, though I know I want to get a new pillow. I’m having less in the way of night sweats too. Sense of taste? Hard to say. In flux I think. I’ll have to be patient there.

The urges come and go. Yesterday I was able to avoid my cigar binky ( a nice old El Rey Del Mundo fatty ) for most of the day. This morning I grabbed it before I was even out of bed. But I’m on my second coffee now, and I’ve got breakfast heating up downstairs, and the binky is already off to the side. So it’s still a One Day At A Time thing, but the urges now come whenever they feel like it. The good thing is that I can get past them pretty easily, and when I can’t, I have my tobacco chew toy. One day at a time; one hour at a time if necessary. But it is starting to get easier. The first 4 truly nicotine free days were the hardest, mostly because I couldn’t think of anything else. The urges tapered off a little in frequency and intensity after that, and I’m more able to think about other things. Like breakfast! Must get to the kitchen, I think I’m scorching something!

Posted by Drew458     on 08/02/2012 at 06:21 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
• Comments (10) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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