smokefree

One month down ...

I started this blog to record the experience of giving up smoking after 31 years - 21 of those without a single nicotine-free day.

I thought it might be interesting. Kind of filled with insights and observations I'd enjoy looking back on. Little epithets that might help other quitters.

Quitting up to 30 cigarettes a day turns out to be an anodyne and depressing process, unexpectedly lacking in entertainment value and drama.

Thus, it spawned an anodyne and lifeless blog. Which I now intend to abandon.

Ironically (in view of my fondness for telling stories), one of the most disturbing impacts of quitting cigarettes has been a dramatic reduction in my articulacy. I trawl my brain for words now, when I used to be fairly quick on the draw for an apposite phrase. I am apparently not unique in this. Google it and various despairing posts on message boards suggest others experience the same desertion of intellectual faculties they once took for granted.

At its worst, the slowdown in my brain function has been quite alarming. A couple of weeks ago I would have believed it if someone had said I had early onset Alzheimer's. I still feel 'slow witted' but there are odd occasions when the fog does lift a bit. Rarely though.

I've even been struggling to concentrate on reading for pleasure.

There are long moments when smoking cigarettes doesn't enter my head. Then moments when it is all I can think of.

But the real shocker has been how insignificant the actual 'craving' has been. I truly don't give a flying fuck about cigarettes per se. It's the general ability to 'self-medicate' in moments of stress that I'm missing. It's the loss of control. And losing the ability to really enhance a moment of contentment. That feels like a loss of freedom. Like an invisible parent got on my case and spoiled my fun.

It's probably the same for users of alcohol. And other 'comforting' or 'reassuring' substances.

But today I've become a more positive statistic than I was before. Exactly one month ago this evening I smoked a cigarette and declared it my last. Today I am therefore classed as 90+% likely to remain quit.

Tell that to my cerebral cortex. It keeps reminding me that research suggests nicotine  demonstrating handy 'magic bullet' properties in the prevention of dementia.

It keeps asking difficult questions.

Do I want a healthy heart and a thick head?

Would I rather be a smart cancer victim?

Will I stay quit?

Whatever the answers, I'll have to live them but I can't be arsed writing about them.

 

ends

Day 19

Significantly reduced cravings.

Dreamed the other night that I smoked a cigarette. Felt disappointed that I had undone all my 'good work' for the sake of something which didn't provide that much of a buzz. It was one of those dreams you wake from and feel relieved it wasn't real.

Yesterday I was impressed by the level of physical fitness I felt, out on the moors of Bleaklow. My lung and general respiratory function feels dramatically enhanced.

I remain wary. Two people at work have resumed smoking - one after 2 years and the other after 1 month.

And only a few days ago I was seriously wondering whether I could stay quit myself.

Each day as it comes and so far, so good ...

Day 12

Unexpectedly, it turns out the early days were easier than these.

The only thing that stops me from buying tobacco right this moment is the fact that I would only have to go through the last 11 days all over again at some future point.

I would not recommend giving up smoking at a time of 'shifting sands' in your life. It just makes everything that bit harder because every stress is magnified .... and often out of all proportion.

I have changed my tune with other smokers. Instead of telling them how good it feels not to be tempted, I'm telling them never to put themselves through the misery of quitting unless it's really important to them.

Frankly, I'm hating these days. They just feel necessary for my future ...

Day 7

A week of not smoking. A week as a non-smoker.

A week makes me feel like a veteran. Battle-hardened. Like I've 'been there'. I know the crack. I've felt the pain. I've stared into the abyss. I know what I'm talking about. It's been 21 years since I last had a day of not smoking. I think I earned the self-congratulatory back-slap.

The annoying thing is that the 'pain' isn't consistent. You expect it to be constant, but gradually diminishing. Instead, it's absent one moment and then crashes in an hour later. It pops up to annoy and distract you at unexpected intervals. They can be loosely categorised as stressful moments. There are too many stressful moments.

Something good is how much energy there is in my body now. My limbs feel light. I run up 8 flights of stairs and don't breathe hard at the top. Not all of this is nervous energy.

Day 6

It's noticeable that cigarettes formed my first line defence against boredom, now that I no longer have the option of using them. I really noticed it this morning. The longer-than-usual queue for traffic lights. The roadworks. The urge to smoke at these times is odd, really, because those were generally the least 'enjoyable' smokes of all ... the ones I would 'squeeze in' between all the 'usual' ones.

Another slightly odd thing I'm now clocking is the experience of 'missing' something I actually don't want to do. It will now take a very self-destructive urge to make me actually smoke another cigarette. Ever again. I will have to want to damage myself ... or utterly not care if I damage myself. There will be no 'succumbing' to temptation just for the sake of effectively self-medicating.

And that's what I think a big element of smoking is ... self-medicating.

My theory is that cigarettes (and probably any other addictive substance, like heroin or alcohol) give you an illusion of control over how you feel. You create a need for something and then you are in control of the relieving process. That's vaguely reassuring when you consider that the alternative is to just have to 'go with' whatever's going on at any given moment.

I'm sure someone will have articulated that better than me. But in my still slightly befuddled state, it feels like a reasonably profound insight.

My breath is fresh. I keep checking it, breathing into cupped hands, just for the sheer novelty. I have washed a lot of clothes. They looked clean but smelled stale. I'm going to have to get my car valeted. My gums are sore. The dental hygienist warned me that would happen if I ever allowed my capillaries a chance to do their job right and increase the blood flow there.

I may grow to love not smoking 100% of the time. It's about 60% of the time at the moment ...

Day 5

So I think I'm doing well. The cravings are reduced. I'm not thinking about cigarettes all the time.

Then I go to bed. And don't sleep. Not at all. Not even for a minute. For the whole night.

True, my head is turning 'stuff' over and over, which is the true cause of this unexpected and rare bout of insomnia. But still, it's the hardest few hours yet. Those dark solitary hours would have been filled with smoke at one time. There would have been some comfort in it.

There is some reassurance in knowing that other cigarette quitters experience disturbed sleep patterns. But only some comfort. Insomnia isn't my style.

But now it seems it is.

Day 4

The dull pang of nicotine withdrawal is like a 'feed me' command emanating from somewhere in the space between throat and stomach. It's a little like bog-standard hunger for food.

What's noticeable is how it only seriously pops up in moments of isolation or self-absorption. The rest of the time it is either completely absent or easily ignorable.

But when it's there, the sense of 'missing out' on something I did for 31 years is hard to shake off. I remain un-tempted to smoke a cigarette but that choice is still from the head. The heart is missing the old ritual of rolling a cigarette, making a drink, sitting down and saying to the world 'fuck off for the next 5 minutes while I do this'.

Day 3

Growing impatience with nicotine withdrawal. I want it to be over and it's stubbornly nagging at me instead. It's interesting how it comes in waves. Last night it dissipated, unexpectedly, round at Paul's where I would normally smoke even more than usual. This morning it slammed in, the moment I woke. It now hangs in there. The nag itself has a spatial location, kind of half way down between throat and stomach. Like my lungs are beckoning me to 'bring it on'. Or something.

'Siobhan' from the Quit Together Programme rings and confirms that there is nothing unusual in feeling spaced out. It's all the extra oxygen in my brain now. Every single one of her suggested strategies for overcoming these early withdrawal annoyances is in play here. She sounds suitably impressed and says she'll call again sometime.

My eyes look different today. The whites are really white and the irises are brilliant blue. I like that. My skin is also less blotchy. I look quite pale, with less of the vaguely yellowy/olive hue I'm accustomed to. When I breathe into cupped hands, my breath is fresh. When I run upstairs my heart rate doesn't seem to change. I noticed the same thing yesterday on the 8 flights of stairs to my workplace.

I'm washing a load of clothes today. They look clean but they stink of cigarettes.

I still wonder whether I really should be doing cold turkey, like this, or whether it would be kinder to myself to have stopped the cigarettes dead and weaned off the nicotine more gradually. But I'm still figuring that using NRT is just postponing further inevitable suffering. Get it all out of the way before summer. Then start to live again. That's the theory.

I don't want a cigarette. The thought of smoking one is repellent. It wouldn't make me feel better.

Not having my body yelling '***&^%$^%^&&###!!!!!!!!!!!!' at me (basically, clamouring in a completely non-specific and unhelpful way) would make me feel a lot better.  

Day 2 ... pm

It's like someone stuck a spoon inside my head and began mashing my brain.

All the constituent parts are presumably still in there. They just don't connect right.

A couple of people at work are telling me this is about the unfamiliar preponderance of oxygen in my bloodstream now, rather than carbon monoxide and other stuff.

Maybe that accounts for the slightly drunken feeling I noticed this morning.

Time is passing stupidly slowly.

Not sure if I did the right thing not using NRT.

Trouble is ... I used my electronic cigarette after breakfast yesterday. Then immediately felt angy that I had just 'undone' 10 hours of nicotine metabolisation. So I decided to 'cold turkey' from then on. My original vision was to take 'cigarette breaks' at work and home using the e-cig. Now I'm making it harder on myself. But I just don't want to be addicted to nicotine. Full stop.

The last half hour has been relatively OK.

But the shock of today leaves me quite wary. I don't yet trust my body not to spring something new and wierd on me. The way it did in return for giving it normal levels of oxygen.

My writing is clunkier than 'normal'. Ugh.

Day 2 ... am

am.

There is an 'empty' feeling in my chest area. I have the attention span of a goldfish. I am fidgety. I am not quite 'here' ... or anywhere. It feels constantly as if I had an alcoholic drink about half an hour previously. It's not a particularly pleasant nor unpleasant feeling ... but it is distracting.

I'm clumsy, dropping things, bumping into stuff and my spatial awareness seems blurred from its usual clarity. I reach to grasp an object but a bigger object gets in the way. Somehow I fail to notice that a straight trajectory will mean a harsh collision twixt knuckles and wood, or something. When I read back what I've just written, there are words in there that I never intended.

This is nicotine withdrawal. It's quite impactful. I'm really feeling it because I chose not to use any 'nicotine replacement therapy' after all.

I've noticed a lot of smokers today. I envy them, momentarily. They are at least feeling on a reasonably even keel, whereas I am definitely flakey.

I noticed how smelly the interior of my car is, this morning. Old cigarette smoke is vile. So pungent and unfresh.

It's slightly odd not having to remember to make sure I have my smoking paraphernalia with me, wherever I go. That's 4 less things to cart around.

It will be so nice to feel 'normal'. Instead of this heightened state of awareness and sensory arousal.

Notably, however, I do not want to smoke a cigarette. There are 2 reasons for this.

1. The first drag would be lovely. Each subsequent one would be less so and the 'calming' physical impact, on completion, would be more akin to lethargy than actual relaxation.

2. Then I would want another. Really soon. I would want another one more than I want one now. The last thing I need right now is to make myself want cigarettes even more ...