Done, done, on to the next

It has been a crazy month since my last update, but I'm happy to say that I've continued on my trend of quitting smoking, and am now a month into my quit. It's been rough, but I'm finally past all of the withdrawal symptoms, and most of the psychological symptoms have finally subsided as well. Unfortunately, this has also meant that I've had to come face-to-face with my other addiction, sweet sweet caffeine.

Let me put this into perspective. In college, my academic adviser drank coffee until about 4:30 in the afternoon, and this is a guy I spent a lot of time with my senior year. To say I picked up the habit is an understatement. My last semester as a history major had me writing somewhere around 90-100 pages between all my classes, and I was drinking coffee from 7am to 7pm and switching to Wild Turkey at 7:01pm, while smoking a pack a day.

Even nowadays, my morning usually started with three cups of coffee that I finish before 8am, and then I drink at least 3 more. And then on my way home from work, I'll grab a Monster from the gas station. On weekends, I'll easily drink 6 cups from the start. You can get a pretty good idea of how this can mess with my sleep cycle, and thus create a vicious cycle of dependency.

This is all well and good when you're smoking, because nicotine messes with how alcohol and caffeine effect the body, mostly in that they reduce the effects. Take away that nicotine, and you have a super-powered drunk/hyperman running around. So in honor of my one month of smoking cessation, I've decided to confront my caffeine addiction. I started out trying not to drink anything containing caffeine, but that turned out to be what scientists define as fucking retarded. After about an hour of feeling like my brain was being pried open, I caved and had a small coffee, and for the rest of the day I felt okay. And that night, I slept like a baby. No waking up in the middle of the night, it took me all of about 10 minutes to go to sleep, and I didn't wake up two hours before my alarm went off. The next day, I decided on drinking my 3 cups of coffee in the morning to get me going, and under no circumstances would I drink a Monster after work.

Now on day four, I've also had the bonus effect of not ingesting between 200-250 calories of God knows what, nor any of the gas station snacks I'd buy and eat as well. Baby steps to a healthier me, woo.

In any case, this post has focused mainly on my resolution of quitting smoking, which I feel confident enough to say I can cross off my list of resolutions. So now, between having a positive net worth and this, I've finished 2 of the 5 things I've set out to do this year. I'll do the full first third of the year update next week, but so far, I'm pretty pumped! And I'll keep posting my QuitNow achievements as I get them, because life deserves to be played like a video game.

Free as a bird now!

I don't want to get too cocky, but as of 9am this morning, I am EIGHT DAYS smoke free! Without even so much as desire for a smoke in the past two or three days! Though I have a much better reason for why I didn't smoke yesterday, and that's the fact that I probably would have struggled to breathe.

Yesterday, I took a trip up to the National Whitewater Center in North Carolina, a huge man-made rapidtopia which the US Olympic team uses to train. And in addition to that, there are several ropes courses, rock climbing walls, zip lines, bike trails, kayaking....you name it, they probably have it. Basically, this place is about as crazy as it can get on land without venturing into the magical land of Clusterfuckia. Which is probably located in Atlantis, or at least Atlantic City.

This experience has taught me two things....the first, that I really need to work on my upper body strength if I ever want to survive in this zombie apocalypse training ground for more than 8-10 hours, and two, season passes are awesome. And the even better part? Three more weeks of not smoking and that pass is paid off. Not too shabby!

Speaking of not too shabby, between an awesome trip to Atlanta where I finally got to see the Bodies Exhibition, the whitewater trip, and an upcoming trip to Charleston this weekend, that's three out of town trips during the month of March alone! I'm international! If by international, I mean driving to two other states...which I do mean. April, ball's in your court!

Moving on; 60+ hours into my quit

As anyone who's ever heard of any quit smoking method, the first 72 hours are the absolute worst.

I beg to differ, if only because experience has taught me well.

I can do 72 hours standing on my head, and have done it, plenty of times. Most of the time, I don't even feel strong cravings, but then again, most of the time, I'm not planning on quitting forever. The scary part is after those 72 hours. Because then there's almost no logical reason to ever smoke again. Sure, you can still get cravings, and there are plenty of psychological impulses that still exist, but the strength and intensity of nicotine's grip are dead and buried by that point.

It's basically like moving on when you've gotten used to anything, except this is chemical based and smells like shit. Imagine your ex actually DID make you high, and that her scent was in every bar and could be smelled from a car away. Pretty damn maddening when you cut right down to it.

Mmm...me and Ciggy. The walks, long drives, the nights of mad writing, coffee together, drinking together.... MAN! Seriously, the association, the growing pains, constant excuses and coverups; it really makes me wonder if addiction isn't just an abusive form of dating for one.

Also, my brain is on fire right now, so if that seemed rambly, my apologies. 

Woo quit achievments!

#QuitNow! Achievement Unlocked: Saving minutes - You saved 60 minutes of your life

Schmokin!

#QuitNow! Achievement Unlocked: 10 Down! - 10 cigarettes non-smoked

Breaking the habit...again

I had actually intended to write about cleaning out my closet (literally) and trying to make a quick buck on the internet by selling stuff, but it turns out a Wayne Gretzky 1981-1982 Topps card in pristine condition is only worth about $7. So, that can wait until some other time (I'm going to end up making a separate whiteboard for posts I want to do...shit that's a good idea). But in addition to that and a completely worthless Jaromir Jagr card (when he was a Penguin!), I found a sort of quitting smoking kit I had written over six months ago. So, instead, I'm going to write about smoking, and how many babies I'd suckerpunch right now to not feel a crave. If you've never tried or never had to quit smoking, that last sentence probably sounded really harsh, and possibly a sign of mental instability. If you have quit in the past, or quitting now, you realize I'm holding back.

I've made a lot of serious attempts recently to quit, but whether it was outright for someone, for someone else under the guise of being for myself, or for someone else to somehow spite them, one simple fact is clear; quitting for someone else doesn't work. And if you end up not having someone to quit for, well, that's when you have to man (or woman) up, look in the mirror, and give yourself the finger, and fight your own demons, ulterior motive-free.

Without further ado, here is my quit smoking kit.

Reasons to Quit - Nothing fancy, just a simple list of well thought out reasons to stop smoking. I made sure to emphasize ones that focus on me, and ones that are in line with my values. The last one is on shaky ground, but still in line with my values.


-It's killing you
-It's cannibalizing your exercise
-It's draining your wallet
-It makes everyone you own smell like shit
-It makes you smell like shit
-Did I mention it's killing you?
-It can prevent you from getting certain jobs or positions
-Boredom's not a good excuse
-I don't even really like it
-I made a promise (a while ago, but still, a promise is a promise)

Trigger List! - Next, I wrote out a list of my triggers. Once I started writing them down, the list gets really long, and really dumb, once I thought of all the dumb reasons I would like up. This definitely falls into a "know thy enemy" sort of philosophy, because once it's in your face, it's hard to ignore.

-Boredom
-Coffee (which I'm drinking right now....)
-Whiskey (throw scotch in there as well)
-Waking up
-Going to bed
-After meals (especially a huge meal!)
-Annoying people that I can't drown out with noise cancelling headphones
-Work not being varied/satisfying enough (this has changed since I wrote this)
-Any relationship issue
-Congratulatory cigarettes
-Seeing friends and coworkers smoke
-Family issues
-Stress
-After working out
-Before/after flying
-self pity
-self loathing
-technical difficulties
-death (irony!)

The sad part is, I could probably write another 20, and only 8 of them would be due to the Eagles last year. .500....what the hell Andy Reid.

How to Beat Triggers: So that you know your enemy...time to come up with a strategy. All I did was write out my triggers, and either why it was dumb, or what to do instead.

Boredom - dumb reason, get a hobby, cook something tedious, workout, clean something, if at work, further career

Coffee - only an issue at home, don't have cigarettes lying around
Drinking - Buy an eCig in advance if early in the quit stages. I don't care if they're not proven 100% safe. Smoking is 100% not safe. Unless eCigs end up killing you faster, save the "jury is still out" bullshit for someone who cares.

Waking up - Don't have em around
Going to sleep - samesies
After meals - chew gum instead, floss, go for a walk
Annoying people - just go for a quick walk
Work - work on things to improve work or switch jobs, even within the same workplace. I eventually did, and big shock, I'm happier and smoke way less.

Relationships - Smoking isn't going to fix shit, and more importantly, it's not a form of retaliation.
Victory cigs - stop blowing yourself
Smoking peers - Don't indulge, don't stand near coworkers while they're smoking.
Stress - you're wasting five minutes while smoking that could be used to destress the stressor. It's not helping anything.

After working out - Can supposedly give you a heart attack. (but tastes so damn good in clean lungs)
Self pity and loathing - (I quote from July of last year) "suck it up, you emo little bitch"

In conclusion
Clearly, this plan wasn't bulletproof, but it was one of my more successful attempts at quitting smoking, and did in fact offer me the best chance of stopping for good. Unfortunately, I did end eventually pick up the habit again, but now that I've discovered this again, I'll be using this. I'll also update the blog with whatever status update thing my QuitNow app (available on Android Market and whatever the iPhone one is called) gives me.

If you have a support system that works, that's great for you, but sometimes, you need your own kick in the ass and need to fight for yourself. That's what I tried to do, and that's what I'll be doing now.