Straighten Up and Wheeze Right!
This is my second day without a cigarette, so if I sound snippy or bitchy in this post, rest assured - that's exactly what I am. I am also, however, more than a little surprised about two separate smoking related things. First, even with the assistance of a heavy duty nicotine patch, I fully expected to be pounding my head against a wall, putting a fist through the door, or strangling my cats. It's not happening. Secondly, I can already feel a difference in my breathing.
Since we live in a land of choices, and since I am also one of those (as you've noticed, dear reader) who talks about rational choices, decision trees, and lateral thinking, it was natural to analyze my situation and my alternative actions regarding my life as my particular choices and the element of time defines it. None of us get younger, so the standard complaints of aging are a factor; so is the excessive costs to indulge this habit (thanks to the anti-smoking lobby and increasing cigarette taxes); so is the overall health of this organism I call 'me' and the combined factors of allergies, asthma, shortness of breath, and whether general weakness is due to hardened or clogged arteries unable to carry oxygen, or overworked sludge covered lungs unable to properly respire.
Nothing I can do about getting older. Nothing I can do about halting increasing costs or taxes. Substituting chocolate for cigarettes wasn't viable...neither middle aged acne or a more rapid spread of thighs or buttock held any appeal, and putting a match to a chocolate straw and trying to inhale only knocked you out with the burnt smell. Ergo, the elimination of tobacco is all that's left, even if that act never rids me of a wheezing inhale or exhale.
None of this 'confession' is in any way earth shattering, excepting that I have/had been an invenerate smoker for many, many years. I liked to smoke. It was calming. It had become my only true vice, alas, and even knowing the downside, it was my choice. It had also become an act of total defiance against all those disgustingly self-righteous people with their phony altruism and their litany of "smoking is bad for you" and their uppitty lectures about "quitting is for your own good." Let's face it....these folks who are determined to hound others couldn't care less about anyone's good but their own. They are the crusaders of this age, but crusaders without the balls to actually crusade for something truly beneficial, like eliminating poverty or improving education. That would be hard work. Trying to ban smoking was their own selfish lark...a lazy man's power play with a cruel streak, a new found political aim with an emotional base, like being anti-gay and anti-choice and anti-pleasure.
Anyway, I also more readily recognize the habitual element of the 'act' of smoking - the reaching for a cigarette as soon as I sit at this keyboard; the reaching for a cigarette when my mind draws a blank about the exact word I want; the reaching for a smoke when I crave coffee; the reaching for a ciggy when being harassed by one of the cats who is determined to get me away from the computer by clogging the keys with her hair, the printer with her paw, the view of the monitor with her tail, or destroying my concentration with a leap to the keyboard that sends me into the black nowhere of cyberspace.
One major surprise in this venture is the realization of how much time was wasted in the act of lighting up, in the smoking, in the cleaning up the perpetual mess of smoking, in the searching for where I left that pack or the lighter. It's almost as if I have discovered an additional two or three hours per day! Who would have anticipated that?
Coffee will never again taste the same; neither will single malt scotch. Perhaps the taste of food will improve, although I suspect the only way that will happen is if someone else fixes that food for me. I won't be accidentally burning any more holes in my fleece bathrobe on Sunday mornings while I balance coffee, the New York Times and a smoldering filter tip. There will be no more trips to the all night market for a pack of smokes when I can't sleep, and my house will eventually smell much better.
The thing that truly worries me though, is how I'll control myself and my urges when I'm sitting alone or with a group of people and some total asshole is prosing on and on with limited knowledge but outrageous opinions that are bigoted and offensive and as dumb as a philodendron, and I'm not holding a burning cigarette that will keep me from reaching out for his throat with both hands. It's a definite worry and conundrum.
This is my second day without a cigarette, so if I sound snippy or bitchy in this post, rest assured - that's exactly what I am. I am also, however, more than a little surprised about two separate smoking related things. First, even with the assistance of a heavy duty nicotine patch, I fully expected to be pounding my head against a wall, putting a fist through the door, or strangling my cats. It's not happening. Secondly, I can already feel a difference in my breathing.
Since we live in a land of choices, and since I am also one of those (as you've noticed, dear reader) who talks about rational choices, decision trees, and lateral thinking, it was natural to analyze my situation and my alternative actions regarding my life as my particular choices and the element of time defines it. None of us get younger, so the standard complaints of aging are a factor; so is the excessive costs to indulge this habit (thanks to the anti-smoking lobby and increasing cigarette taxes); so is the overall health of this organism I call 'me' and the combined factors of allergies, asthma, shortness of breath, and whether general weakness is due to hardened or clogged arteries unable to carry oxygen, or overworked sludge covered lungs unable to properly respire.
Nothing I can do about getting older. Nothing I can do about halting increasing costs or taxes. Substituting chocolate for cigarettes wasn't viable...neither middle aged acne or a more rapid spread of thighs or buttock held any appeal, and putting a match to a chocolate straw and trying to inhale only knocked you out with the burnt smell. Ergo, the elimination of tobacco is all that's left, even if that act never rids me of a wheezing inhale or exhale.
None of this 'confession' is in any way earth shattering, excepting that I have/had been an invenerate smoker for many, many years. I liked to smoke. It was calming. It had become my only true vice, alas, and even knowing the downside, it was my choice. It had also become an act of total defiance against all those disgustingly self-righteous people with their phony altruism and their litany of "smoking is bad for you" and their uppitty lectures about "quitting is for your own good." Let's face it....these folks who are determined to hound others couldn't care less about anyone's good but their own. They are the crusaders of this age, but crusaders without the balls to actually crusade for something truly beneficial, like eliminating poverty or improving education. That would be hard work. Trying to ban smoking was their own selfish lark...a lazy man's power play with a cruel streak, a new found political aim with an emotional base, like being anti-gay and anti-choice and anti-pleasure.
Anyway, I also more readily recognize the habitual element of the 'act' of smoking - the reaching for a cigarette as soon as I sit at this keyboard; the reaching for a cigarette when my mind draws a blank about the exact word I want; the reaching for a smoke when I crave coffee; the reaching for a ciggy when being harassed by one of the cats who is determined to get me away from the computer by clogging the keys with her hair, the printer with her paw, the view of the monitor with her tail, or destroying my concentration with a leap to the keyboard that sends me into the black nowhere of cyberspace.
One major surprise in this venture is the realization of how much time was wasted in the act of lighting up, in the smoking, in the cleaning up the perpetual mess of smoking, in the searching for where I left that pack or the lighter. It's almost as if I have discovered an additional two or three hours per day! Who would have anticipated that?
Coffee will never again taste the same; neither will single malt scotch. Perhaps the taste of food will improve, although I suspect the only way that will happen is if someone else fixes that food for me. I won't be accidentally burning any more holes in my fleece bathrobe on Sunday mornings while I balance coffee, the New York Times and a smoldering filter tip. There will be no more trips to the all night market for a pack of smokes when I can't sleep, and my house will eventually smell much better.
The thing that truly worries me though, is how I'll control myself and my urges when I'm sitting alone or with a group of people and some total asshole is prosing on and on with limited knowledge but outrageous opinions that are bigoted and offensive and as dumb as a philodendron, and I'm not holding a burning cigarette that will keep me from reaching out for his throat with both hands. It's a definite worry and conundrum.
posted by kaz at 9:56 AM
2 Comments:
ahh... inhale with me my friend.. my favorite topic thus far.
I only laid to rest my best friend of 16 years on 10.23.05 and I so miss them so. Mr Benson and Hedges Deluxe UltraLights Menthol 100's...mmmm the sound the smell the taste...
THE COST!!! One expensive date were they!.. but I drone on....
Let me first say.. I too used the patch and to date it has worked it's charm. I do not smoke, nor do I want one. I MISS THEM like an old friend.. but I don't pick them up.
Yes oh my, they were time wasters!! I smoked outside exclusively.. so lots of my time was spent finding somewhere comfortable to smoke. ( I live in the mojav desert.. extremes in heat and cold abound)
as far as dim witted assholes spewing unintelligble garbage in your vicinity.. my burden in life is to be related to not one of these cretins.. but 4 of them...
I drink.. alot! Not alchohol mind you.. but water, soda, things with ice and lots of it.. so I can play with the ice and 'accidently' choke on it at their loudest or dumbest.. good topic stopper that one!
seriously.. it's a learned behaviour and we learn new ones when we quit.
good job! I still hang out with folks who smoke.. doesnt bother me as much.. kinda nauseates me a little...
support here if you need it!
Oh my dear Kaz...coming as I do from the trenches of the 99th time attempting to quit [which I am again, co-inky-dink or not], I certainly can feel what you're going through.
I was quite successful with the patch - of course, note the past tense - it worked great for me at the time, as it certainly "worked" like it was supposed to. I, too, was quite surprised that I didn't long to commit hari kari without a cig.
My downfall with that method was sheer hubris - I was doing so well that I cut the program short, quit the patch and promptly started smoking again.
But..I had some drop down kick ass dreams during the patch time, which was wonderful, unusual, and fun.
Remember when we used to smoke in the office - wow, when I think of that now it just amazes me! The fact we used to do that.
Also, if you remember, you gave me that beautiful mother of pearl lighter that I loved, and I nearly went crazy when I thought I lost it on an airplane [back again, of course, when smoking was allowed there].
Anyway, I'm starting the process all over again, for many of the reasons that you state - not just the health factor or the "me" factor or the money factor, but it seems like a fortuituous combination of all three that has got me going again.
Best of all luck in the world to you to keep it all together as you wish, as you want. It's a tough road but it's a personal road, and if anyone gives you crap about it they should be slow roasted over the fire of their own personal vice.
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