Sunday

I felt sick when I got back from Pflugerville. I didn't realize how bad it was when I took a couple pictures of myself (I'm not that vain, I just have a definite lack of things to take pictures of). The bags under my eyes were dreadful, but unfortunately not unusual. They are, I've found out, a product of blood getting built-up due to bad flow. Most commonly associated with allergies, there were primarily a product of poor oxygen flow.

Funny thing about when I'm smoking. I literally forget to breathe. Temporarily, anyway, until I gasp to catch up. The thought occured to me that such things cannot be good for the body.

A couple days earlier, I mentioned to a coworker that I used to never get sick. It's true. Adam and I had this thing going that neither of us ever got sick, so we were part of The New Breed... of... err... something. He gets struck with allergies pretty bad these days and while I almost never miss work solely due to illness (two days in four years, food poisoning in both cases, and despite the food poisoning I still turned in half-days at work), I very often have the sniffles or... well something that I never had before I started smoking.

So I made a list of pros and cons:

Pros	Cons
Makes the commute to work easier gives me something to do when I'm waiting for something Makes the live music scene more complete Helps food settle after I've eaten Helps me meet people Passes time Keeps me awake when I'm tired	this shit kills Get sick This shit kills degrades appearence This shit kills Smells bad This shit kills Disapproval of acquaintances This shit kills I plan to quit anyway This shit kills Disrupts sleep This shit kills

So that was a pretty obvious decision.

I looked at my room, which was in disarray. I looked at my stomach, though not as hefty as I was a couple years ago, was still too large

As readers of NLJ know, I've been re-evaluating my life on many fronts. A lot of it is personal and areas that I'm not sure what the answers were. In these cases, it was obvious: I needed to get my act together. I needed to eat healthier, stop smoking, and clean up.

So I drafted up a plan. In five or nine weeks, I would accomplish all these things. Just in time for when I move to wherever it is I'm moving (we're not renewing our lease, I may be getting my own place, or I may move out of Houston). There were three big things I knew that would require the most changes to my day to day life: Stop eating fatty and unhealthy foods, stop drinking coke, and stop smoking. I figured the smoking would be intermittent and would probably be the last thing. In fact, it kind of needed to be the last thing because if I wasn't already eating healthy, I'd gain weight and have that much more to catch up on. So I figured I'd stop eating unhealthy first (the easiest of the sacrifices, actually). Then I'd stop drinking coke. Intermittendly, I'd be phasing out my smoking, one step at a time.

One step at a time?

The thing about my smoking is that I don't smoke out of a craving. In fact, I don't really crave them all that much at all, except in certain instances. It was more of a habitual addiction, if an addiction at all. So I listed off when I smoke.

When I Smoke

When driving When on break at work When I need to stay awake When I write When I go to clubs When with other smokers When I am in deep thought

So I'd eliminate them one step at a time. First, I'd stop smoking after 8pm so it would stop disrupting my sleep. I'd start doing that immediately, I thought, as I was smoking outside outside at 11pm. In a week, I'd stop smoking in the car. In two weeks, I'd stop smoking at work. Three to five weeks, I'd eliminate the rest. Except possibly clubs, which remains a possible exception if I can manage to smoke there and nowhere else.

Then I went to bed

Monday

Funny thing happened on Monday morning. I felt like shit. I mean, I felt bad. Really, really bad. Thinking it through, between the driving (Reason #1) and deep thought (Reason #7), I'd gone through two packs Sunday (I rarely smoke a pack on any given day, usually less). I forgot to take the cigs with me to work. I started to pull into the convenience store, but I realized that if there was one thing I didn't want or need, it was a cigarette. Instead of smoking on the drive up to work, I thought about what I was going to do.

The answer was obvious: Cold turkey.

Of course, if I quit smoking I'd also have to step everything else up, too, so that I don't gain weight from this venture (which could, in turn, be used as an excuse to lapse to lose the weight back). There were a lot of things I'd planned to do before quitting that I hadn't been able to: Get some water around the apartment, clean the car out, get some toothpicks or something to keep my mouth busy (that's what my mom, who virtually quit smoking, did), and get some gum to "clean my mouth out" (the great thing about cigarettes is that they get any food taste out of your mouth so you're not hungry for more, but sugarless gum does the same).

The hardest part was during my breaks. Twice a day, fifteen minutes, nothing to do. I needed the break so my mind could refresh. My boss was watching me very closely all day, so I couldn't post much of anything online nor could I surf (such things are forbidden, even on break). No music, either. The longest fifteen minutes in the history of mankind that were not the last fifteen minutes of some sports contest.

Monday night, I drew up the rest of my plans, made a shopping list, ceremonially threw out my remaining cigarettes and lighters, and went to bed.

Tuesday

Tuesday was when it hit me. Not any cravings, but sleepiness, and there was nothing I could do about it! My usual remedies, Mountain Dew and cigarettes, were off-limits. I managed to stay awake during the day, albeit barely. The fact that my boss was riding my tail all day surely helped. When I got home (an hour early), though, I was toast. The timing was pretty bad, as I had a date that night. I called her up with the intent to put it off a night if possible, but she excitedly asked if she should wear anything in particular. I didn't have the heart to cancel. I told her that I'd need to push it back a couple hours so I could get a nap and she was cool with that.

And nap I did.

The alarm got me up at 7. I saw her online as I was about to hop in the shower. She had some unfortunate news. Her mom (who is in poor health) had to take another trip to the hospital, so she had to cancel.

Whew.

Back to sleep I went. All. Night. Long. 15.5 hours in all.

Wednesday

But sonovabitch, I was still sleepy. Still nothing to help me gain any energy. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. All those nights I'd used nicotene to keep the sandman away - and those nights were many, especially a couple weeks ago when I was at work for two 24 hour shifts -- had made him angry and vengeful. The sandman was back and there was hell to pay.

I put it off as long as I could, talking to Ora about it. She mentioned that when she was struck with bouts of needing excessive sleep, she used diet pills. I didn't have any of the prescriptions that she did, but it did remind me of something. When I was dieting in college, Metabolife used to give me insomnia. It was, in fact, a rather ferocious energy booster. So I added Metabolife to my shopping list.

The other striking thing was the headaches. I'd stopped cold turkey a couple times before, usually for a week or two just to prove to myself that I wasn't addicted, and I'd not had headaches like this. My head usually didn't like it, but these headaches were rather fierce. The most remarkable thing about them was their swiftness. They'd come out of nowhere, but before I could do anything about it, they'd go away. Then they'd come back, and the process would just keep repeating itself.

I took a trip to the convenience store to knock off the things on my list. You'd be amazed how difficult it is to find toothpics. I never did find the real wood kind and sadly had to make due with some blastic "brushpicks" that more or less did the job. I also bought my Metabolife and some healthy food.

I paid about 13 hours of hell that night with periodic disruptions of sugar cravings. That was more of a product of coke withdrawal than anything else, though. In the past, it's been so bad that I will wake up in the middle of the night, drink a Pepsi or Mountain Dew and then go right back to bed. I had to make due with orange juice, which had enough sugars to allow me to get right back to sleep.

Thursday

My boss continues his tradition of riding my tail. The Metabolife does its job. The headaches receeded Except on my boss's orders I had to rearrange my office (again!), which by the end my headache stock had risen and my energy one severely lowered. The other curious thing was that I'd been chewing so much gum that my jaw was sore.

Friday

I went to the Firehouse that evening and successfully did not smoke. First time in many months where that happened. Despite my sore jaw, I found the energy to chew gum on the drive down to Clear Lake to keep me awake.

Saturday

I don't let my parents in on my little secret. I steal one of my mom's wooden toothpicks, thinking what an improvement it'll be over my little plastic thingies that keep getting all bent up. I was wrong about that. I chewed up the wooden toothpick in under five minutes. The remains will be pictured above with all the other substances that have kept me going.

I napped all afternoon. I'm going to bed shortly.

Conclusion

My belief that I am not physically addicted seems true in one way, false in another. My body is obviously reacting adversely to the quitting, which means that it had grown dependent. What's strange, though, is that I've not had a single craving. Not like I've had cravings for sugar and soft drinks. The biggest thing is the constant exhaustion.I've come to the odd conclusion that quitting smoking is going to cost me more money than smoking did. At this point, without the cigarette breaks, my mental endurance at work is in freefall. This would be fixed if I could do other things on my break at work, but since I can't do anything on the computer, I can't take a mental break from what I'm doing, and whereas before 5:00 came and went, now I'm pooped when it's done. Less overtime means less money. A lot less money than cigarettes costed.

TPB commented that his clients would kill him if he stopped smoking and I'm left to assume that's what he meant. I used to say that smoking is the dumbest habit on the face of the earth. Everything gives you something (alcohol drunkenness, drugs a high) except cigarettes. Well, apparently they gave me the ability to keep working longer. The extent to which they did that are only now becoming clear to me.

The other thing that I'm worried about is writing. I haven't tried to write in the past week and I'm not sure how it will go. It's amazing how many ideas I've come up with on my patio, smoking and thinking about the plot of whatever story I'm writing. I'm going to have to completely redesign the way that I write now. Where are my ideas going to come from?

In any case, I'm still going strong. They say habits are broken and formed in 21 days. Considering how much of my routine I'm uprooting as I do this, I wonder what my life will be like by then?