Friday, July 13, 2007

Blah, blah, quitting smoking, blah

Apparently I am still in quiet mode, away from my computer and somewhat uncommunicative. You have my continued apologies, Blogreader.

Mostly, I've been gearing up for the big quitting smoking thing on Monday. I'm trying to ensure that I have plenty of distractions on-hand—piles of books and dvds, crossword puzzles. Been tidying up as well, so that I don't have to think about that at all for the first week or so. I plan to sleep as much as possible during the worst of it, but last time I discovered that I was completely unable to sleep. Each time my body would relax and I would begin to drift off, my leg or whole body would jerk and I'd be awake again. This was the primary reason I broke down and bought cigarettes again: I just wanted to get some sleep. This all seemed perfectly rational at the time, except maybe the part where I kept smoking once I was sleeping again.

In case this particular problem returns, I'll have some nicotine patches handy. I sleep beautifully on the patch. The dreams are exceptional. Or maybe I'll just get drunk and see if that helps.

Looking back, it seems likely that the number of times I have attempted to quit smoking is greater than one hundred. I don't think I've ever made it past three days, even with nicotine replacement therapy (patch, gum, what-not). Obviously, my goal is significantly longer than three days this time.

I'll be using the blog as something of a diary of the quitting process, which may or may not be a good read for y'all. I hope it will be engaging or informative on some level, if only to remind some of you why you do not smoke, or to remind others of you why you have not quit smoking.

A wise friend of mine once said that quitting smoking requires that you constantly choose pain over pleasure. Knowing how readily the pain can be removed, that relief can be bought and administered within five minutes...well, that doesn't help much either.

11 comments:

Unknown said...

I have heard that muesli can be quite painful.

Anonymous said...

"...that quitting smoking requires that you constantly choose pain over pleasure..."

That makes it sound like a thankless task, which of course it is not, and yourself a kind of victim, which of course you are not.

A better way of looking at it is to regard it as recovering from a self-inflicted illness, which is what an addiction to tobacco is.

It sounds to me as if you want to give up but you don't want to give up and you are preparing yourself to fail. You have to decide what it is you want to do then go ahead and do it. No whingeing about "pain".

Pallav said...

Hey Maht...

some of my friends tried to quit, they just took up other forms of intoxication which were kind of milder...then milder and then milder...you need great self control...may you can search google for pics of smoke infected lungs...if you get scared you might quit. ;)

N

Wanderlust Scarlett said...

Oh Moon Topples, you have my best wishes for success in this endeavor.

Good luck!


Scarlett & Viaggiatore

Chris said...

I wish you good luck with your fight. Some pleasure for the pain? Take the money you would normally pay for your cigs and sock it away in your travel to UK fund as a reward. England is now smoke free in all enclosed public spaces. So think of this as a necessary prep for your forthcoming trip across the pond.

Joni said...

Good Luck!!

Nikki Neurotic said...

This is why I never started smoking...I'd never have the willpower to stop. Good luck!

Unknown said...

Nicotine patches, nicotine chewing gum, nicotine spray are all part of the arsenal, I'm told - along with lots of space and no pressure. Of course, having told all of us you're quitting the pressure is now immense... We're watching you... :-)

Good luck and strength.

Jon M said...

Quiting smoking was one of the best things I ever did! Hypnotherapy really worked for me and I went on to run marathons and all kinds of dumb things! :-)
Good luck Maht chew your fingernails, pick your nose but don't smoke. And don't chew your fingernails whilst picking your nose...that's just showing off!

The Moon Topples said...

Minx: You don't know the half of it

SilverT: Um...it truly isn't as simple as your statements would suggest. But I thank you for the encouragement I think I read in there.

Nothingman: My brother switched to menthols after being shown the effects of both regular and menthol cigarettes on the human lung. He thought the menthol one looked cooler. Of course, he was still quite young during all of this.

Scarlett: Thankya.

Chris: I'm in love with the idea of socking away some dough for a trip, but it is hard to budget those things with no income. I think maybe I'll reward myself with a camera lens or something else smaller in scale.

Joni, SilverN: Thanks much.

AbVan: Yes, I did consider not making the quit a blog thing, but then I figured if I wasn't willing to put it on here, I wasn't really going to try to quit. I'm hoping the other nictoine replacements won't be necessary, but am willing to fall back on one of those if need be. As to space, well, I have plenty.

Jon: I don't really want to get into what happened when I tried hypnotherapy, very complicated and unsuccessful. Glad it worked for you, though. And good advice on the fingernail/nose thing. I might have tried to combine the events and been disappointed.

Unknown said...

Just eat. That's what I did... Of course I'm now smoking again... and it took a year and a half to lose the weight... Ok don't listen to me. Everyone else has given much better advice (and seem more successful too.)