Blogging Me Softly

September 29 is day 7 without nicotine. I am taking a  generic Zyban product, which is incredibly helpful, but still I am restless and out of sorts.

I am actually trying not to talk or complain about it too much, however,  because that might generate obsessive thinking, which is where my quit efforts have always failed.

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I'll be honest here: I love smoking. I have always loved smoking.

I once quit for 4 years, and found it a total relief to start smoking again, even though I had hardly missed it. I like smokers. Seriously. In today's world of smoking-is-allowed-absolutely-nowhere, smokers are stubborn rebels. I tend to like that in people. I don't know why, I just do. Like folks with tattoos – there's a basic toughness in people who walk 2 blocks on their 15 minute break.

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So here we are, me and all the characters in my brain who talk to me (even though I try to play it off as talking to myself), going on day 7.

This is what I am telling myself: The first seven days must be the toughest.

Yesterday I told myself: The first six days must be the hardest.

Do you see the pattern here?

Honestly – I would just smoke, except that seven days seems like an accomplishment, and I'd have to start over counting the hours.

One way or another, I have to quit.

I have an obstructive pulmonary condition that will turn into COPD if I keep smoking. That turns into emphysema.

Ugh.

On the upside, I no longer wake up feeling like I am drowning.

I can laugh out loud without the laugh turning into a hacking cough. (Although I still have a cough).

I can inhale and exhale deeply without choking.

I ran two blocks with the dog today, and it felt GREAT. I haven't run on purpose for years. (Poor old dog, had to give her an aspirin for her sore knee afterward).

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I jogged up four flights of stairs yesterday. Okay, that didn't feel so great. Although it did make me feel as if I'd just smoked a cigarette, which pretty much was my intention.

Jogging the stairs is my plan for not going crazy at work. If I can't smoke, I tend to skip my breaks, but then I get totally stressed out. So never mind the stair-master, I'll be using the real deal.

Anyway. Enough of my whining. We all have our trials.  I still have 9 cigarettes and a lighter inside a cigarette pack. It's my emergency stash. It's wrapped in duct tape, mostly to give me time to reconsider. Because I know myself: smoking just one cigarette is all it takes for me to quit quitting.

I am not worried about writing. Stephen King assured me in his book, On Writing, that even without nicotine, my brain will spin stories and all I have learned about my craft will not suddenly disappear.
Whew. That is good news. I'm even turning it around on myself – I used to measure time with cigarettes, and I used to smoke as a transition between activities. So my strategy this week has been to use that time writing a few hundred words. Very productive.

I learned something else about my productivity, and that would be that I have a very hard time keeping my ass in my chair. No wonder I don't write more than a few pages a day. Good God, I'm getting up and heading to the back door a few hundred times a day. Well, that's what it feels like now, when I get up from my desk, and then try to figure out what I got up for, since I'm not going outside to burn one.
Anyway. Despite feeling a vague sense of boredom, and despite having to constantly remind myself that I am no longer a smoker, you know what? It's day SEVEN, and I'm actually doing all right (smile).
Have a great Thursday. (If you happen to be a smoker, smoke one for me, k? Thx!)