A step in the wrong direction

Under normal circumstances I’m am fairly strongly against focusing on negativity. In this particular case, I feel like it is very important to me to dedicate one post to this. I need to make sure I highlight the problem so I make sure that I see it. I also worry that if I included this in a typical post it would seem like I was trying to cover up the problem, both to the reader and to myself.
I smoked this weekend; more than a couple. As you may have read in a previous blog, I have struggled primarily with not smoking while at social functions, especially when alcohol is involved. Rather than thinking of a way to deal with this problem and take care of it, I chose, instead, to embrace the problem and let it grow. I decided that there was no way I was going to not smoke while drinking and that in an effort not to be mooching cigarettes all night that I would just buy a pack so I only had to deal with the guilt of smoking and not the guilt of taking cigarettes from people. The plan was to smoke until the end of the night at which time I would give the remainder of the pack to someone else. This worked relatively well on Friday night. I smoked maybe half of a pack and, at the end of the evening, gave it away to another friend that smoked. This seemed all well and good to me. I had my cigarettes for the night of drinking and at the end of the night, they were gone and I could pretend that I was still a happy non-smoker.
Then Saturday night came around and to my surprise, I found myself out drinking with some friends again. I hadn’t planned on this and of course, I had to have another partial pack. So I went and bought one. I did it last night, and truthfully, a prior evening a few weeks ago. Why wouldn’t it be equally successful this night? Unfortunately for me, at the end of the night, I did not give this pack away. Why didn’t I? That’s a great question and in truth I could give you several very valid reasons that I did not. But each one reeks of being a lame excuse and I will not burden you with them. There were several people I could have given them to. I could have just left them at the house I was at. Even better, I could have thrown them away. But I didn’t, I kept them. At the exact moment I chose to keep them, it was too late to do anything about it. I had cigarettes and I was going to smoke them. I had several Sunday morning and even through the evening and into Monday morning. Of course this whole time I kept telling myself, “I just have to finish this pack and then I’ll be done again.”
The first thing I realized is that I had been lying to myself. Obviously it hadn’t been a conscious decision. And in this case I think it was one of the more convincing lies I had ever told myself. I think most times that I have told a lie to me, somewhere, I knew it was a lie. In this case, I did not. I told myself I was in control, I had beaten this thing and now I was going to taunt it. I was going to use the occasional cigarette to remind myself how terrible they were and how much I didn’t need it. The moment I caught myself in the lie was one of the strangest and worst feelings I have ever encountered. I was driving home from somewhere, I don’t even remember where and I was angry about some little thing, I don’t even remember what. I remember sitting in my car on the freeway and just fuming over this little tiny thing. I was so unreasonably angry about it. It took a while but at some point I realized this. There was absolutely no reason for me to be so mad about this insignificant little thing. Then the thought entered my head that maybe just one cigarette would be good to calm me down, but no, I’m not a smoker, why in the world would I need a cigarette? That’s when it it me. Yes, I was unreasonably mad about something, that was being caused by the nicotine withdrawals and yes, I thought a cigarette would help, that was also being caused by the nicotine withdrawals and I was addicted again.
The realization knocked me on my ass. I’m sure most of us know how it feels to be caught in a lie. The guilt, the embarrassment, the frustration at being caught. Being the one catching the lie isn’t pleasant either, betrayal, anger, feeling foolish for having believed the lie. When you really truly catch yourself in a lie, you experience all of the emotions of the catcher and the caught at the exact same moment with no one to direct them towards but yourself.
The other thing that I thought was really off about this whole situation is that I was more comfortable with giving a poison to my friends than I was with taking it from them. Seems rather backwards to me.
Anyways, the good news buried in all of this is that I am back on track. It was a rough weekend but I’m back on the wagon again and feeling great. I do have some residual sore-throateyness and congestion from a weekend of smoking but I expect that will dissipate within a day or two at the most. While this was definitely a set back, it was not a failure. Merely a small stumbling block on my road to victory. I have no doubts that I have beat this thing. I may not be perfect, and I may not have done it all at once but my eyes are on victory. I am consciously aware of my struggling and I am fighting it. I will beat this.
See ya later.
-Paul

Benefits of Quitting

So my little sister sent me this link from Stumbleupon (awesome service by the way).It explains what happens to your body right away when you quit smoking. I found a few things about this interesting. First of all, I'm curious about his sources. This guy does not site a single thing. Not one! Come on, you could at least say, "I heard this from a buddy of mine at the bar. He was 12 drinks into the night and nearing comatose." At least then I'd have some kind of gauge as to it's accuracy. Ok, moving on. Let's pick this list apart.

* In 20 minutes your blood pressure will drop back down to normal.

As you might expect, I really don't have any way to verify this as I don't regularly check my blood pressure. However, I did notice while working out yesterday that my heart rate was noticeably lower than it had been in the preceding few months. That is definitely encouraging. This also brings up a rather interesting point about the state of your body while you are still smoking. Most people I know go at least 20 minutes between cigarettes while they are smoking, at least during weekdays anyways. Smokers are a little bit more likely to be chain smokers on the weekend but for most working people there are 2 hours between smoke breaks during the day. That means that if this point is true, a smoker’s blood pressure is on a roller coaster ride all day long. That can't be good for your heart (not like smoking was particularly nice for it in the first place.)

* In 48 hours your chance of having a heart attack will have decreased. All nicotine will have left your body. Your sense of taste and smell will return to a normal level.


I thought this was an interesting claim. 48 hours seems like a very short amount of time to be able to determine if a risk of heart attack has decreased. How in the world could anybody possibly study that. You would have to have an insanely large study group, filled with smokers, non smokers, and people who had just quit that day. Of course after that it's easy. Just monitor them all for 2 days and count how many of them have heart attacks. Say what?! Come on. No way. As far as nicotine leaving your body; I'm very curious to know what the actual facts behind that are. I've heard claims about that anywhere from a day and a half to a month after you quit. It seems like that could be dependent on how much you smoke. If anyone has any verified facts on that one, I would be very interested in seeing them. The taste thing is really hard to gauge as well. The night I quit I ate KFC, not exactly a flavor explosion, and the night after I made spicy Indian curry. I can definitely say that I tasted more of the curry than I did the KFC. That's probably not a very good comparison though...


* In 72 hours your bronchial tubes will relax, and your energy levels will increase.

I'm going to disagree with this one as well. My energy levels have already increased. Granted, I am now at the 72 hour mark but, I was feeling more energetic before now. I suppose that could have been in my head but does it really matter? If I feel like I have more energy, it amounts to the same thing as having more energy so who cares? I'm not entirely certain what is entailed by "your bronchial tubes will relax" but my throat is, again, feeling better this morning. I've also been coughing a lot of garbage out of my lungs. That's not really a new thing but it's nice to know that I'm no longer filling them up and once it all gets expelled they're going to STAY clean.

* In 2 weeks your circulation will increase, and it will continue to improve for the next 10 weeks.

I don't really have anything clever on this one. I wouldn't mind finding out about that one. Is there a way I can monitor my circulation?

* In three to nine months coughs, wheezing and breathing problems will dissipate as your lung capacity improves by 10%.

Well, the wheezing is gone already. The wheeze was only an occasional thing for me though; usually right after a cigarette or maybe the day after a particularly heavy night of smoking. In terms of coughing and other breathing problems I think that this is also a fairly conservative estimate. It may take that long if you've been a chain smoker for several years but I think most people in my situation who have been at a pack a day for maybe only a few years, you'll start to see these changes a lot sooner.

The remainder of these I'm not even going to touch. The ten years for normal cancer odds thing I've heard before. That's one of the really common ones that they tend to throw at smokers to scare them into quitting. My nit-picking aside, I think this is a really encouraging little list. A lot of these numbers may be based off of something closer to a "worst case scenario" and for most people they are going to be a pretty generous estimate. That's kind of a cool thought though. Take a look at the list, "Hey, this is as long as it's going to take for me to notice this benefit." I think it's pretty cool. And you have it from an ex-smoker that while the numbers may not be 100% accurate, you WILL notice these benefits and more.

Freeeedom!!

As many of you know, April marked a great success in my life; I quit smoking. I chose to use Allen Carr’s EASYWAY method and my success was incredible. The feeling of courage and power over my life was unmatched. I was healthier, happier and far better equipped to deal with everyday stress in my life. Unfortunately and to my own shame, over the last few months I have once again been struggling with the nicotine trap. Many of you knew this, many more did not, and I’m certain that many of you knew but, with the best intentions, kindly kept your mouth shut. Worst of all I worked very hard to keep the truth of my shortcomings from many of the people who mean the most to me. It seems strange to me now and through the entire time I had fallen back into the subtle trap of the cigarette how, after several months of pure elation at being an ex-smoker, I was able to fall so easily back into my old destructive habits. I would like to stress that it was not the fault of the method. Reading “The Easy Way to Quit Smoking” is easily one of the best decisions I have made in my life. Reading it a second time as I once again struggled with cigarettes was again a great choice and my best shot at overcoming this particular demon. The downfall of my attempt in April was my blatant disregard for some of the instructions of the method. I made the mistake of loaning the book to somebody who also needed the instruction it contains. This meant that when I needed it most, I did not have it available to turn to as a reference and a reminder of the filth I had left behind. The second instruction I failed to follow is that I kept cigarettes in my house. I tricked myself into thinking that this would not be a problem as I knew that I had escaped the trap and I would not need another cigarette. On the evening I smoked my last cigarette, I decided that I would seal the pack, mark it with the date of my last filthy cigarette, and keep it as a reminder of what I had overcome. Unfortunately, what I truly had done was ensure that in my weakest moment, I had cigarettes available to make my failure easily accessible. 

I have moved past these mistakes and others that lead me back down the path of nicotine addiction. Having gone for months at a time as a non-smoker, nobody is more aware than myself of the incredible benefits of not smoking and the hideous drawbacks of the filth. I have re-read the book and am once again committed to a successful escape from the nicotine trap. This morning, I proudly smoked and extinguished my last cigarette. It has been less than an hour since that moment and I am beyond excited to already feel the filth of smoking leaving my body. In a few short weeks I will be completely recovered from my recent struggles and ready to move on with the remainder of my long, healthy, non-smoking life. I am beyond excited to be free of the control of nicotine. Each day as more and more of the drug leaves my body I will battle each craving with the glorious realization that I no longer need to poison myself. 

Please do not mistake this post as a cry for attention. It is more for my benefit then that of anyone else. I am posting this so that I have a record of my thoughts and feelings somewhere easily accessible to me. I am not looking for attention, pity, or congratulations from anyone. If you choose to comment on this post, please make it positive. Do not belittle me for my mistakes. They are mine and no one could possibly realize fully the negative impact they have had on my life. I realize that no one is as sarcastic as I am and many of my good friends share a love of teasing each other. I beg you to not take that attitude now. I do not need negative reinforcement. In the coming weeks and months, please feel free to ask me about my success. I will be excited to tell you how wonderful it feels to again escape slavery from cigarettes and how elated I am to know that I have quit for the last time. To my smoking friends, if you are interested in quitting. I would highly recommend the EASYWAY method. As I mentioned before, my struggle of again falling into the nicotine trap was not any fault of the method. The fault is my own. If you are interested in reading it, I would strongly encourage you to do so. Although I feel it would be dangerous for me to once again loan my copy of the book out, I will gladly buy a copy for you. 

Thank you to everyone for your support through my struggles and my shortcomings in this effort. Please realize with me that every failure is one step closer to success. I am excited to be tackling this beast with every expectation to defeat it; this time for the last time.