New Perspective

Thanks to OK Katrina for slapping me upside the head with a realization.

Katrina mentioned Monkey, which got me thinking.

It's a training issue. I have to train myself not to smoke.

And, in training, you build upon the previous lessons.

You don't take a horse that's never seen cattle and expect them to do a perfect cut right away.

You break it down into steps, work on each small step until it's easy for the horse, and then move on to the next.

I started to do that, by cutting back on my smoking, but I wasn't cut back enough to go to cold turkey when I ran out of cigarettes. I had my horse loping on the proper lead, and then asked it to run 13 second barrels. It just doesn't work that way.

And, in case of training failure, you back up, go back to the basics, and build from there.

So, I'm backing up.

I bought a pack of cigarettes, and I'm going back to the cutting back stage. I bought menthols, because, frankly, they're disgusting to me, and that makes it easier to resist.

The cigarettes are on the top shelf of the pantry, far enough back that they're difficult to reach. The lighter is in the junk drawer. The ashtrays are over the stove.

I have to expend effort to get a cigarette, but I'm not going to expect myself to be perfect right away anymore.

I had been thinking of this as just a matter of making myself do it, and do it now.

Thanks again, OK Katrina, for reminding me of what I should have remembered myself.

So. Re-training, Day One. It's going to be a long road, but patience will get me there faster than force, I think.

Ok, ok...

So I slipped. About seven thirty tonight I remembered a half a cigarette sitting in the ashtray of my car.

I managed to get one of the doors open, without causing permanent damage, and I smoked it.

So, slip number one from complete cold turkey.

I don't have any more butts in the car. The next slip is going to require that I go somewhere to get it. Which will make it easier to resist.

The bad part is, it seems completely sensible to slip. After all, quitting will be so much easier if I don't tax my body too much, a complete cold turkey quit is a shock to the system, and makes a person feel like complete crap, whereas a tapering off... not so much. So why make it harder on my body?

That is, it seems sensible to slip, until after I've done it.

Admission of failure, even a small failure, is a thing that comes very, very hard to me. I've physically injured myself rather than give up on something that I've made up my mind to do, before.

I'm very stubborn. Usually.

I think addiction makes us all weak. Which totally sucks ass, if you ask me.

Perhaps...

I should explain.

I re-read that last post and I realized that some of you out there may not have any clear idea of why I'm so touchy.

Maybe you've never seen withdrawals, or maybe it's never been clear for you, or maybe you just don't give a crap but typing this keeps my hands busy so sit down, shut up and bear with me until I'm done.

Nicotine withdrawals are relatively mild, don't get me wrong. Nicotine withdrawals don't make you physically ill, the way, say, heroin does. At least not to the fever, nausea, just-kill-me-now point.

However, I'm only a few hours into complete nicotine withdrawal, and I know the symptoms from previous attempts. Most of them, for me, are psychological.

I'm jumpy, I'm nervous, I'm paranoid and suspicious of everything, my mind keeps popping up images of cigarettes to taunt me with and I can't focus for crap.

Meanwhile my hands tremble whenever a craving hits, I get slightly light headed on occasion and I find myself wanting to punch something roughly every five seconds. If I were a cat I'd be the one that follows people around mewing piteously until they try to pet it, whereupon it turns and rips their arms to shreds, only to resume mewing piteously and not understanding why they chase it with pitchforks.

The worst part is, I know that all of these are irrational responses, that I don't really need the nicotine to be a happy person, blah blah blah, all of the usual crap. I know all of that.

Which only makes me more frustrated when I can't control them. Which makes me want a cigarette to calm down. Which starts the whole thing over again, only worse.

And all of this means that every time someone invades my personal space bubble in a way I can't ignore, I want to squeeze their heads like a pimple until gray matter shoots out the top and I get to fingerpaint with it!

No, really. That's what my brain wants me to do, just in case the adrenaline rush of running from the cops in some way resembled the light headed dizzy rush I'd get if I had a cigarette right now.

So, now you may have a better insight into nicotine withdrawals, or maybe I'll read this in a week and go "wtf was I thinking?!?"

We'll see.

My Resolve

Not to kill people is being tested. Some strange man came knocking on my door.

Twice.

If I wanted to talk to him I'd have answered the door the first damn time he was standing out there dancing like he was about to wet himself.

If he comes back, I'm not promising he won't be crying when he leaves.

I mean seriously, what's the point of locking myself in my apartment to keep myself from being a complete and utter bitch to everyone around me by the simple expedient of not having anyone around me, if they're going to not only interrupt my TV show with a knock on the door, but provide such tempting targets for viciousness as well?!??

Who could resist being mean to an overweight balding guy who stands around outside of strange women's apartments wringing his hands and dancing from foot to foot, while staring around furtively?!?

Either he wanted to attack me or it was his very first time approaching a real live female of the species.

I'm in no real condition to distinguish, at this point. I'd probably assume the first just because it would let me beat someone...

It's Official

I smoked my last cigarette at around two this afternoon.

The weather is conspiring to help me, for once. I went out to the car to get a book, earlier, and my doors are frozen shut.

So, I can't go out and get cigarettes. Unless I walk. A long way. In the cold.

All incentive to stay the hell inside and deal with it like a man.

Even though, you know, I'm not. A man, that is.

Well, I Was Going To...

I was going to go to bed. But then I realized, when I turned off the tv, that someone had very kindly ignored the laundry time instructions posted clearly on the wall, and was not only using the laundry facilities, but apparently making use of them to clean and tumble dry their brick collection.

Ten PM and it sounds like bronc riding on hardwood right outside my apartment door.

Problem is, I'm into the cranky phase of nicotine withdrawal, now. So, it's hard for me to distinguish what the proper response would be.

Figuring out who's shit it is and taking it to their door at three in the morning along with a gift of sense from my baseball bat sounds pretty good to me, but it's probably not very politic.

I'm sure neither is throwing all of their laundry out into the freezing rain, although it's tempting.

Oh, listen... someone else isn't happy about it.

Hmm. Interesting approach, just take the noisy shit out of the dryer, apparently. Of course, standing around yelling about it kind of makes that pointless, now doesn't it?

Ok, I'm going to go try to get some sleep now. Assuming another one of my kind neighbors doesn't decide to wash their rock collection at midnight....

Progress

Well. I'm on my last partial pack of cigarettes. All smoking items except for one ashtray which is sitting on the kitchen table where I can't see it for the pile of Ed's stuff, including that pack of cigarettes and my lighter, are in the back of the cabinet over the stove.

Today was a step down day. Half a cigarette, max, every hour at the minimum. Longer if I could do it.

I've managed just a couple of puffs every hour or so for the last few hours, and I'm making myself stand when I smoke. I would make myself go outside to smoke, but if i go outside into the cold it would be too easy to rationalize smoking the whole cigarette so that I wouldn't have to go back out into the cold as soon.

The hardest part so far is the psychological stuff. I'll reach for my cigarettes on the end table while I'm watching tv, and when I realize that they aren't there, and I'm not going to let myself smoke yet, the craving ratchets up about five notches, and I start twitching.

Tomorrow, I'm going to try for no cigarettes at all, but I'm not going to hate myself if I don't make it. I'm doing pretty good on cutting back (I was at a pack to a pack and a half a day, before I started cutting back) and that's definite progress. Besides, eventually, even with the strict rationing, that pack is going to run out.

Then I just have to stay in the apartment.

It doesn't all have to happen right now, and demanding that of myself would lead to frustration, anger, and failure.

As much as I would like to just flip a switch and never want a cigarette again, that's not the way it works. As long as I don't smoke more than I am at this point, I'm going to consider it a victory.

Considering the way my hands are shaking, just thinking about smoking now (it's been fifteen minutes since my last puff) I think it is a victory. It's progress, anyway.