Hey.
What's up? You been good?...mhm...mhm...ok.
Good to hear.
Me, I've been good. On my fifteenth day without a cigarette (did I mention that I was quitting smoking? Did I mention that I smoke...? Hm.), and I feel great. Boy, I sit sometimes and wonder what could be so powerful to compel you to use something that, within twenty-four to thirty six hours of stopping its use, you feel lighter, breathe easier, the aches and pains that you'd grown so accustomed to goes away, and you feel like a new person with a new lease on existence.
Then I remember the shakes, twitchiness, irritability, manic mood swings, and the constant, niggling desire to light up and keep poisoning yourself, and I go 'Ah, that's why.'
*Rick James voice* "Nicotine is a helluva drug."
Anyway.
Quitting isn't easy (and the award for 'Understatement of the year goes to...'), but the key is having a plan and sticking to it. Me? I've come up with a system that works for me, and I'll share it with you, in exchange for a few minutes, an open mind, and the belief that you too can quit.
If you don't smoke, then good. Don't. Nasty, disgusting, life ending habit, and if I ever see you with a cigarette, I'll hit you so hard your parents and your grandkids will feel it.
As to my syestem, well...I don't eat as much, so that I'm always a little hungry, and that helps take the edge of the want, and it also eliminates the 'oh so full' feeling, which is a HUGE trigger for the 'just eaten' cigarette. I exercise, which actually does help as well to take the edge off as well, and produces endorphins, which are a great replacement for the nicotine buzz, lemme tell you. I stay away from (or minimize my physical time, in the interim, till my will power is up to scratch) my friends who smoke, and try to regulate and regularize my routine. These are two powerful triggers, as smoking is largely a learned activity, and an immensely social one. Also, having too much time on your hands makes for too much time to think about how you'd love a cigarette.
Stay focused, it can be done. Make up your mind and do it.
The next step, as far as I am concerned (when was the last time you saw that, and not AFAIC, eh?) is to train yourself to resist that IMMEDIATE urge, the second you feel stressed, pressured, tired, or your mental hold slips ('cause you're gonna have to keep that mental hold strong, there's no pill that'll make you quit, they're just 'assistants', or, as I like to think of them, crutches) to go out and get a cancer stick and light it up.
It can be done, stay with me now.
Really, this is the killer. I've 'stepped' outside myself, and watched myself get up, put on clothes, root up some spare change, walk out to the town proper, and get some singles, walk back, sit down on my verandah and light up, the whole time thinking 'I don't want to do this, but why can't I stop', at anytime between ten o'clock and one o'clock in the morning, on any given night (day or time for that matter) that the urge has struck me, and I didn't have any. I'll be going good, maintaining, keeping busy, doing my thing, and then a little voice and a push that says 'go have one, you know you want to' comes along, and I shrug and go 'ok, the hell you were waiting on, let's go!' and off I go, whilst inside I'm shouting 'Stop!' every step of the way.
It's not nice to feel like you don't have control of yourself or your mind. It's the ultimate feeling of powerlessness, and it can UTTERLY break your spirit, if you let it. So, you look out for it, and nip it in the bud when it comes. Me, I just tell myself 'I've quit, I don't do that anymore!' over and over, whilst I stand there and fight a short but dirty mental scuffle with my fiending nerve endings, shake it off when it goes away (when I win, that is. When I lose...well) and keep going. I used to say that 'No, I'm trying to quit', but this is a fallacy (defined: A fallacy is an argument which seems to be correct but which contains at least one error and, as a consequence, produces a final statement which is clearly wrong. Though it is clear that the result is wrong, the error in the argument is usually (and ought to be) difficult to find...). Say it with me now, its very simple.
Ready? Here goes.
You're not trying. You've either quit, or you haven't. NO TWO WAYS ABOUT IT.
It can be done. Stay focused.
Finally, I treat the feeling of emptiness, of loss and sadness at having lost something so essential to my existence ('Nicotine is a helluva drug') by remembering my bad breath, my wife-to-be complaining about my mouth tasting like an ashtray, black lungs, smokers in cancer wards on respirators, being incapacitated and having to lug such a respirator around, the damage I'm doing to the environment with each cigarette, the fact that somewhere big tobacco is laughing all the way to the bank (and hell), cashing in on my suffering and desire to be cool, feel calm, relax and enjoy this thing that shortens my life with every breath I take. I think of all those things, but mostly I think about dying and leaving my wife and children (when we have them) for as stupid a reason as not being able to control myself, exert my will (the single most underused aspect of an individual's psyche in today's society, IMO (there you go!)), and STOP KILLING MYSELF SLOWLY.
Stay with me, it can be done. Just keep your head in the game.
I think about those things, and I smile, and say to myself 'sure, something's going to kill me someday, BUT NOTHING THAT I CAN CONTROL!'
That's what I do. Fifteen days and going. Two months personal best. *breathes deep* Let's see what I can do about extending that, shall we?
More as it develops.
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