quitting smoking

/gemlog welcomes snowdusk ;-)

quitting smoking
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Created Thursday 19 May 2016

http://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=04&d1=10&y1=2016&m2=6&d2=15&y2=2016
https://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=4&d1=10&y1=2016&m2=1&d2=28&y2=2017 Result: 293 days :-)
https://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=4&d1=10&y1=2016&m2=7&d2=19&y2=2018 830 days!

Well, finally!! Just about there. Day 40 of not smoking using nicotine 'mints' (mint-flavoured nicotine pills really — right?) as an aid in quitting the addiction.

Wednesday April 6th, 2016, Kayla, a pharmacy assistant in Kitimat, pressed me for a quit date after I inquired about BC Med paying for quit smoking aids. I picked Sunday April 10th as Day One of not smoking; it seemed comfortably far away at the time. I drank beer and smoked my brains out on the Saturday night prior though.

On that chosen Sunday I was awake for 17 hours and I ate sixteen 4mg nicotine mints. Pretty much the max you can take. Really, it wasn't too bad. Especially after the first one when I realized that it only takes about 2-3 minutes to feel the effect of nicotine in your system from the mint.

I didn't think they 'burned' the mouth like a very hot mint at all on Day 1 — I had been warned about that. I also sucked on them like a candy, so I had hiccoughs and heart-burn from each mint. Later I learned to tuck them between my teeth and lower or upper lip. That stops the hiccoughs, but I don't think you can ever stifle the heart-burn sensation entirely (but it's not really that bad imo).

I don't know how many mints I ate on Day 2. Less than Day 1 for sure. I do know I changed the question from "Do I want a cigarette?" to "Do I want a mint?" and that seems to have been a great help right the way along.

By Day 3 or Day 4 a couple of hours or so would go by easily without a mint, because I'd simply forget to have one. I think it was Day 4 I had my last mint for the day at 22h30 and didn't have another mint until 10h30 on Day 5. Sure, I was asleep for 8hrs of that, but still... that was quite encouraging right there.

Another thing on Day 4: the mints were quite hot! Same mints, of course, but my sense of taste and smell had recovered already. Just like they said it would: Suddenly, the exact same mints tasted hot to me.

You will notice a huge improvement in the flavour of things and your sense of smell by Day 4. I couldn't believe it — I still can't get over it at Day 40 really. Everything tastes Amazing and you Will want to EAT ALL THE THINGS. I have gained 3-4 pounds in about 6 weeks. I don't care as it's more important to quit smoking cigarettes. I can lose that weight later. Or now even. I've been taking fairly energetic walks just lately, because my breathing is easier and better. Also, I do NOT miss coughing my brains out in the morning and at random times during the day. That stopped by Day 3 at most. Now it's just a slight bit of phlegm occasionally throughout the day every couple or three hours. I understand that might go on for up to 9 months, but it's very slight and of no moment. Plus, every bit of it means more lung capacity, so Phlegm For The Win! ;-)

Day 6. OK, that was a dark day. I had an argument with my best mate and fell off the wagon. I had 3 cigarettes in rapid succession. That depressed the heck out of me. I was like "Of course! You can never get past day 6 can you idiot?" Because that has been true all my life. OK, all my smoking life, which is since I was 10 years old. Never any more than six days. Not ever. I was finished. I had failed yet again to beat the addiction. :-( And then depression set in...

And then I considered that the previous 5 days had been pretty much a skate, because of the mints and I'd be even MOAR of an idiot to give up this opportunity only because of one lapse. "Don't be an idiot. Get over yourself and have a mint."

So, I popped a mint in my mouth and moved on to Day 7...

Day 6 was useful in a couple of other ways too. I learned I do Not miss the sensation of inhaling smoke: Do Not Want! I also learned that it tastes really, really horrible. Again, Do Not Want. And I learned a better way of getting along with my friend and simply eliminated the contention by moving house to Katherina's. Point final. Win, win. So. If you happen to eff up like I did right there, just get over yourself and get back on the horse and ride.

The next days were whatever. No real jonesing, but no "Gee, isn't this great?" moments either. Just meh. By Day 9 I'd noticed that I often (but not always) forgot to have a mint for as many as 3 hours. On Day 10 I decided to go 3 hours between mints as that as the recommended step down method: increasing the time between mints.

So, mint number one at seven a.m. Number two at ten a.m. Number three mint at one in the afternoon. Number.... no. I couldn't wait until 16h00 (4pm). I was jonesing for a mint quite harshly at only 15h00 (3pm). Very disappointing.

And I thought it was quite stupid to follow the plan of spacing mints, because no matter how long I waited between mints, I'd always spike my blood nicotine level to the height of the mint as soon as I ate it. So I started cutting the mints in half instead. Just physically whacked the lozenges in half. And a few weeks later, in quarters (mostly yielding crumbs though, I must admit).

Getting over cutting the 4mg mint in half to yield a 2mg mint took about two days to get used to and wasn't too hard on me. About Day 20 I got some 2mg mints and immediately cut them in half to yield a one mg mint. That was hard and took four days to get used to as a new dose. Especially the first day or so, because I neglected to give myself permission to have as many as I liked — I'd never have more than two an hour anyhow ('coz of how long they take to dissolve), which would be no worse than the dose I'd just changed from.

There is no smaller dosed mint than 2mg, so I was forced to quarter the mints to get down to a 1/2mg pill. Not easy and not quite even, but whatever. I started those on Day 34 and this time let myself have one as often as I liked. After a few days you get used to it and start forgetting to want one for a few hours.

Day 1: 16 @ 4mg mints = 64mg / day
Day 40: 5 @ 0.5mg mints = 2.5mg / day

Day 41... I got up at 07h20 and had my first 1/2mg crumb at 11h30 and my second at 15h45. I meant to have one at 15h30, but was busy yapping and eating some turkey jerky at the vet clinic with the girls who work there. I am very close to being done with these bloody mints — I really dislike sweets in general and 'eating' candy every day for 6 weeks has not been a joy. Mind you, it is sooo worth it to be rid of the smoking and the nicotine addiction.

It hasn't all been quite as rosy as listed above though: quitting smoking and taking on these mints destroyed my sleep. In 38 days I had exactly one full night of sleep. I've never had much of a problem with sleep. During these past weeks I've gone to sleep easily, as usual, but then woke up in as few as 4 hours later. Or 3. One night it was a lousy 2 hours of sleep. Day after day, week after week. One day I woke up half-way into the oncoming lane on the highway I was so sleep-deprived! Another night I sleep-walked and scared the heck out of someone — and I have no memory of it. Another night I sent a whiny email to my priest and have no memory of sending it at all.

On Day 38 my daughter emailed me "Dad, you need to see a doctor or a mental health person" ... "You are a zombie Dad, not like yourself at all." So, not so good there then. However, that very night and the next night I got a full night's sleep. Two nights in a row. Tonight I'm hoping for a 3rd night in a row of proper sleep. This afternoon one of my bank managers remarked that I looked way too relaxed and happy and it was unfair ;-)

I'm pretty sure I've beaten the addiction finally. Finally! After 45 years — I was Not a very bright 10 year-old kid... Of course, nothing on a 10 year-old is fully developed, but especially the brain, which continues developing until about the age of 25. My body and brain developed into adulthood bathed in nicotine and had no idea how to exist without it. Both parents and grandparents smoked in the house and the car too. My mother smoked while pregnant. I was primed to be a smoker and nicotine addict as my body had always known the stuff anyhow. And it was easy and cheap to get, as it was perfectly legal to sell cigarettes to minor children back then at 25 cents a pack. You could also buy 'singles', that is, just one cigarette.

Actually understanding the mechanism of nicotine addiction was Extremely helpful to me. I received a link to this article on Day 7 from a friend, after my disastrous Day 6, when I really, really needed some help:
http://marshallbrain.com/nicotine.htm

If you are interested in quitting smoking, you should give the above article a good read. Maybe two or three times even. So good. So useful.

Here's the basic mechanism of addiction, which takes place in a matter of mere days or weeks, not months of your first cigarette. You are completely dependant on nicotine after that time. Basically, your brain maintains levels of certain chemicals in your brain to keep you Normal and nicotine really messes things up. One of the many things your brain does is keeps in balance certain "feel-good" neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine against the 'fight or flight response' noradrenaline.

When you first smoke, you get a 'rush', because nicotine has some of the same shape as acetylcholine, which is produced by the brain to regulate things. You get a buzz — along with some coughing from the smoke that you put up with. Over a fairly short period of time, your brain learned to stop producing it's own acetylcholine, because you kept giving it nicotine all the time from cigarettes. Perfect. You are now addicted to nicotine and here's why: If you don't smoke, your 'feel good' levels of brain chemicals drop and your feel simultaneously anxious and depressed at the same time. Until you smoke a cigarette... And you don't even get a buzz from it anymore :-(

You don't smoke a cigarette to /start/ feeling good. You smoke a cigarette to /stop/ feeling bad!! And nicotine has a half-life of about 60 minutes, so it doesn't take long to make you start jonesing for a smoke. Over and over and over and...

As a friend of mine pointed out the other day, it's an addiction that just takes and takes and never gives. For example, at least you will get a high from any other substance abuse addiction like alcohol, heroin, coke, whatever. So please do give that article a read; it is /so/ worth your time.

Perhaps you are thinking that those poor tobacco companies didn't know when they got into the game and now they are being demonized and are simply stuck in the middle?

Nope. Not only did the tobacco companies know of the addictive nature of nicotine, they ENHANCED it further by free-basing it with ammonia. Yes. Same as the cocaine heads do. But they did it first. To make more MONEY.

You, well 'you' are simply expendable. They will recruit another addict after they kill 'you' and 'you' are no longer profitable. Some kid in Indonesia perhaps. Or Honduras. Or Vancouver, as it is still legal to operate there, just not as easy as sticking a cigarette machine in or near a school anymore. Or selling single cigarettes one at a time, so that little children can afford to buy them. That's how I got hooked.

Here is what goes into pouch tobacco or cigarettes: 20% (old returned dried out stuff), 30% paper and 1/2 fresh tobacco. All treated with ammonia to make it pass the blood-brain barrier more easily and be more addictive, of course.

What’s Inside a Factory Made Cigarette? https://vimeo.com/24466769

To end on a lighter note with John Oliver:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UsHHOCH4q8
It's still not that funny really is it? Is it??