Week 11

I'm just upon 11 weeks without smoking tobacco.

According to the original 12 week plan, I should be nicotine free a week from now.

Not gonna happen.

The only change in my nicotine lozenge dosage is that I switched from the 4mg to the 2mg. But I still "need" them about every 2 hours, on average. By "need," I guess I really mean "crave, and take one to satisfy that craving."

I don't think that is any significant, boastworthy progress.

So, I'm still not saving any money by not smoking. But I'm saving my lungs, so, hey!

I just need to work my way back to a point of strict discipline to take the steps that I was supposed to a few weeks ago. And at least I haven't really moved backward.

Bill Bruford on Quitting...Smoking.

I came across a passage regarding smoking and the quitting thereof in the recently released autobiography of innovative, British, jazz/rock drummer Bill Bruford.

When you try to give up nicotine, you're treating with the Devil. I thought the deal was that if you gave up, the desire to smoke would also leave you, so that you wouldn't have to give up again every day. Somehow you took it as read that if you gave up so did the craving. But the Devil saw me coming and sucked me right in. Oh, I gave up, but the delicious smell, feel, and touch of a cigarette remained as firmly embedded as ever.

Out the Window

In the Daily Tabouleh, Danny shares a smoking-related thought:

I am still wondering why people throw their cigarettes from their car out the window and not place them in an ashtray. If you are stinking up your car already and you reek of smoke, why are you littering?

Good question, Danny. And there is an answer.

Unfortunately this answer will never satisfy any non-smoker's curiosity.

Before I dig in to this, please note that I consider someone who tries smoking, smokes "socially," or smokes regularly for less than, say, a year a non-smoker, in a polar generalization.

There is one big question, and millions of questions branching and rooting from that trunk.

A non-smoker cannot understand why a smoker exists at all. There is no logical, intelligent reason for anyone to smoke cigarettes, given sufficient information about the product. If the point of smoking itself is senseless, than why bother questioning the logic of any of the user's attendant habits?

I mean, how does a smoker know he has a "cough," as in when one's gets a cold?

Well, guess what? He knows. There are many, minute, physiological changes in the body. Listening to a smoker cough, noone else would know the difference. We (were) always coughing, hacking and hocking every waking moment, as if we were sick anyway. It all sounds the same to those around us. The sick cough and the "smoker's cough" just feels different, and we internally feel and taste the difference. There is a different taste in the throat and mouth, a slightly different muscular pull, a different tickle in a different area of the throat, different phlegm content and consistancy, etc.

Now, the ash tray issue is similar in some regards.

To a non-smoker, cigarette smell is just one, foul smell. Cigarette smoke stinks, and everything exposed to it stinks.

But cigarettes have many smells, that have differing intensities and half-lives (metaphorically speaking). There is the presently burning cigarette smoke itself, billowing out of the lit tip. This will choke anyone, and burn the eyes if it blows in one's face. Then there is the smell of the cigarette smoke indirectly. You smell it, but the actual smoke is not in your face. These scents are the more immediate, pungent smells. These smells diminish in intensity over various lengths of time. You can roll your windows down and 'air out' the car, and these will diminish.

Then there is the smell of the ashes. They have a more stale, stagnant dead smell. This is the smell that stays. If an ash tray is left full, you will continue to smell this. This same smell will be embedded permanently into the upholstery. Long after one quits smoking, and driven thousands of miles with the windows down, it will remain in the upholstery and carpet in the vehicle. Just sit shotgun in my ride and smell for yourself.

I'll cut this short. We're like dogs. Humans think poop stinks. Period. Dogs perceive all kinds of information from a variety of scents it perceives in a piece of doodie in a variety of locations and states of decay.

And I have no problem comparing cigarettes to fecal matter.

Fellow Strugglers and General Update

I have a larger post in the works, and it's taking a bit longer to get around to/finish then I thought, so I thought I'd check in.

Usually, such long lapses in communication from recovering addicts indicates that the "recovering" status has reverted back to "indulging."

Not in my case. I am in the middle of Week 9 without even a single hit off of a cigarette.

My lozenge addiction hasn't changed much. 5 days from now, I am supposed to cut back another step further to 1 lozenge every 4-8 hours, I believe. But, alas, I am in a quagmire of 1 lozenge every 2-3 hours, on average.

The other night, I hung out with 2 fellow nicotine addicts. One highly recommended using the lozenges to the other as an aid to quitting. He said it was a major help to him. But apparently, not enough. He said he was doing great for a few months, but stated he was back now, lighting up one of those flavorless cigarettes that makes you suck the hell out of it to feel any rush.

The other friend was excited to report that, after constant, thwarted attempts to quit, he has gone 4 days without cigarettes, cold turkey. Hooray! He recounted his morning struggles of flailing his arms and head about, in a mad scramble for the missing vice, fighting to make it through the diabolical first morning craving.

The problem is, he is also a recovering alcoholic with over a year of sobriety. He has had several near death experiences as a result of his drinking, and all his peers have been very proud of his daily triumph.

Coinciding with his abstenance from nicotine, was a tumbling from the wagon, and back into a routine of feebly concealed alcohol consumption.

Week 7: C+

Today is Day 45.

I still haven't given in.

But the impulses are still there, albeit with decreased frequency. There have even been a couple of occasions within the past 2 weeks, where I've said it aloud, "F**k, I wanna smoke a cigarette!!" That's probably normal for any abstinent addict to say. But for me, I don't want to smoke a cigarette; I just want the craving to subide. But these times, I did. I wanted to actually suck that carcinogenic smog through a vestigial filter...so...badly.

This passes soon enough.

But I have not been without failure.

Two days ago marked the beginning of Week 7. The significance of the 7th week is that, in accordance to the instructions accompanying the nicotine lozenges, I am to cut back on my dosage. What was 1 lozenge every 1 to 2 hours should now be 1 every 3-4 hours.

I have failed to make this adjustment. I still have one every 2 hours, on average. This only reinforces the notion that I have merely traded my medium, and my addiction remains.

To make an A+, I think I would have had to quit cold turkey, permanently, with no nicotine replacement therapy. I think I'm doing pretty well, but if I give myself a B, then I won't feel any need to work on my deficiency.

C+

Enlarged graphic, for no reason...

He and Phlegming

Here I am at 1 month, 3 days cigarette free.

I have noticed that my coughing has cleared up dramatically, which includes general "throat clearing."

I used to clear my throat constantly, throughout speech.

My Smoker's Cough was pretty bad. It was like a calling card. In fact, more than one former roommate told me they knew I had come home because they heard me cough. It was like a decrepit, indirect version of "Honey, I'm home!" (not that I'd ever refer to any roommate as "Honey" in anything other than jest).

Any childhood dreams of double-O'ing for MI6 or excelling in any ryu of Ninjutsu were dashed on the rocks by such self inflicted damage resulting from my addiction.

But then, James Bond was a smoker (see this link, although info not cited; or research for yourself). Perhaps not so much in the movies, as the years went on, as direct links to lung cancer and heart disease are more openly pointed out, and pressure to dissuade increased. (Also, beginning with The Living Daylights, he didn't get to bang as many chicks per movie, as AIDS awareness came into vogue.)

It must have been feared that 007, being the ultimate role model for awkward, pubescent males, may influence them to take up cigarettes themselves. That would be a much easier Bond characteristic to emulate than his other abilities, such as physical stamina, hand-to-hand combat, extreme snow skiing, or wooing the hottest women on the face of the earth into bed within 0-2 hours.

Show him killing and maiming thousands of people with impunity, fine. But God forbid we show him smoking.

How was he (for example) able to sneak up on security goons in silence? The answer: he is a fictional character. Simple as that. In reality, someone who "smokes sixty per day" could not be silent for long without at least some minute wheeze, especially after all the running, climbing, jumping to get there. Besides, he would bear a perpetual aura of stench that would portent his approach, silent or otherwise.

Oh, and forget about those scenes of holding his breath underwater for absurd lengths of time.

His creator was a heavy smoker as well. Interesting that the author's last name is Flemming, as well. (Get it? Smoking...makes you, heh, cough up phlegm? Heh.)

Anyway, the other thing that is just amazing me lately is that I can actually inhale long and deep.

I don't feel that my lung capacity has increased per se. It's just that, before, I could only take in a very small increment of air into my lungs without feeling a tickling in my throat. This tickling would instantly trigger a coughing fit.

So I find myself pausing to draw as much air as my lungs will hold and exhaling slowly, in wonderment. But, as I said, I still don't seem to be able to fill them to the level I feel they should be able to hold. But it's so great to do so without doubling over, coughing and hacking.

What I really need to do is begin some rudimentary, realistically-demanding cardiovascular exercise regimen. But, we'll see how that goes...

In conclusion, although the point of this entry is to acknowledge some improvement, I still have some coughing/hacking fits. For example, immediately after consuming my lunch today. But by comparison, such episodes come much, much less intensely/frequently. And besides, I've been warned that after quitting, one 's throat regains some sensitivity, and there is some purging to be had.