Ex-smoker Update, Day 87

Or maybe it's day 88, I'm not really sure. I have a magical counter on Reddit that tells me, but I forgot to look at it today. Things seem to have settled down somewhat, emotionally, although I'm running on pure anxiety from noon-9pm every day. You know how meth is such an awesome experience that it eventually burns out the pleasure centers of your brain and leaves you unable to feel joy ever again? Well, I don't either, but that's what "they" say, and if I can't trust the Government and the Media to give me honest information about illicit drugs, who can I trust? But I digress... I sure wish that would happen with the anxiety center of my brain. You'd think that running on 4-alarm adrenaline for weeks on end would eventually stop, but after 2 cups of coffee, my brain locks the doors and floors it and I'm stuck in a 1980s car chase movie until nighttime. Exercise helps for a while, but I can't just stop my day every hour and a half and do a 20 minute workout. I'm going with the term "ex-smoker" rather than "nonsmoker", as the way I understand it, a nonsmoker is someone who never smoked and to whom the idea of sucking on a cigarette is absurd, while an ex-smoker still gets cravings after meals, first thing in the morning, etc. Being an ex-smoker really sucks the dick, but it sucks less than being a current smoker. It sucks a tiny amount less every day, to the extent that it seems like I'm not really making progress at all, until I turn around and look at where I was 2 weeks or a month ago. Completely insane, apparently. My sense of smell has now improved to the point where I can smell other peoples' bad breath from 2 or 3 feet away. Yay me. Thankfully I've had a nasty cold for the last few days so I've gotten a reprieve from smelling things. I still get mood swings, ranging from rage to despair. You know where the needle never stops? Joy. Relaxation. Well-being. Lori said a couple of weeks ago that she didn't think that it was so much "my time" to quit smoking as it was that I was just being incredibly stubborn and refusing to smoke. The mood swings have lessened somewhat in intensity and frequency, however. I do take pleasure in the fact that I have deprived the State of Minnesota over $130 in excise and sales taxes in the last 3 months, and the feds are short $43.50. Any other benefits, like a reduced chance of stroke, are too abstract for me to really have any feelings about.

Day 56 smoke-free update

So it's day 56 since I smoked. 5 days ago, I was running out of gum and thinking, "Gee, it's kind of stupid to prolong my nicotine addiction by chewing gum," so I quit. I only had about 8 pieces of the gum left anyway, and going out to buy another box for $25 was unthinkable. Last Monday, I woke up without feeling too withdraw-y, threw the rest of my gum away, and made a run for the exit. Since then, I've been dealing with severe depression and rage issues. I was so sad today that I just wanted to lie in bed and cry all day. Strangely, these emotional problems are not linked to a craving for cigarettes or nicotine gum or anything, they just *happen*. My self-esteem, which has been really low for the past 4 years, went to zero, and I just couldn't imagine my life ever getting better ever again. I couldn't imagine ever being happy ever again. I got a call from the quit-smoking people today, my 6th follow-up call, and when they call they go through a number of questions. Did I have more energy now? Yes, I said, I have more energy now, but it's not the sort of energy that you'd actually want. It's not the energy to go out and do something fun or go outside and dance like you're in a tampon commercial. It's the sort of energy that makes me want to pistol whip people. It's the sort of energy that makes me feel like I'm in Logan's Run and I just turned 25. Running for my fucking life, that's where I am now. I can't stand my own stink, my natural body smell, and I feel so stupid, so dim-witted. I haven't been able to remember anything for the past 56 days. I have 2 jobs that can't afford to pay me, 2 bald tires on the Jeep, and a very busy month coming up. Busy good? No, busy bad. Liquidating all my stuff and moving out. And yes, there will be pistol whipping.

Smoking update

It's day 40 without a cigarette. I'm still on the gum, but I've only had 3 pieces today; the nicotine addiction seems to be drying up and falling off like a scab. Which makes me wonder if I'd been smoking something like American Spirit chemical-free cigarettes whether I would've just quit on my own anyway. Probably not. Forty fucking days. I thought we'd be done with this shit by now.

Anyway, chewing gum just to get the nicotine out has started to seem rather ridiculous; I mean, why continue to chew gum just to lengthen my addiction? It's tough to describe, but whereas it once seemed perfectly normal to stick a cigarette in my mouth and set it on fire, it now seems perfectly ludicrous to keep chewing the gum.

To date I have saved (or really, "spent") $240 in fun money and have screwed the State of Minnesota out of $64. That's a big motivator for me. The State has had their hand up my ass for the last 3 years, with one more to go, and they've made an enemy for life. Whatever I can do to legally screw the State out of tax revenue over the next 40 years, I'll be doing it.

I started on cardio yesterday, skipping rope for like 3 minutes, before I was panting like the last dinosaur. I thought that after 40 days, most of the crud would be out of my lungs, but maybe this is just how people who don't do cardio feel. Or maybe I fucked something up permanently in there, I wouldn't be surprised. I worked out yesterday for the first time since I quit, upper body, and that was...disappointing.

See, my workout was boring, and I really didn't feel like doing it, but I did it anyway. Then I quit smoking and I really, really didn't feel like doing anything I didn't want to do, and so here we are. I tried Hindu squats today; Joe Rogan does 200 of them before every workout. I think I got to 20.

I'm still flatlining emotionally; I don't feel proud, or excited, or free, just kind of "meh". Hopefully that will go away when I get off the gum, but it's like I'm still waiting for some cosmic sign that I'm officially a nonsmoker now. I don't miss cigarettes, and it's easy for me to remind myself that whenever I see someone smoking, they're really not enjoying it anyway. Maybe they get a burst of pleasure from the first 5 puffs or so, but after that it's just bland. Maybe if I got diagnosed with terminal cancer I'd start again, but failing that, no.

I can smell a lot more things now, mostly things which I'd really rather not be smelling. The world is full of rot, ooze, and body odor, it seems, and I can't really see how I was missing out without those in my life. I seem to sweat more. And I've gained like 5 lbs., which was probably good for me anyway.

So it's been 40 days, and all I've got to show for it is the money. I'm more of a dick than when I was a smoker, but I'm less of a dick than when I was a smoker and ran out of cigarettes. I don't even know which of the health benefits I can claim--you know the ones: "After 10 days of not smoking, your penis grows 3 inches". Nicotine is a vasoconstrictor (constricts blood vessels), so I don't really know which of the benefits I get and which ones I don't. I certainly haven't seen myself growing more hair or healing wounds more rapidly or losing age spots, which were 3 things I was kind of expecting. And, has been mentioned, my lung capacity is for shit. I'm in low-level withdrawal at about a "2" (compared with a "10" for first day cold-turkey) more or less constantly now, which is annoying, but manageable.

I desperately wanted to end this update with, "And if that withdrawal doesn't end pretty soon, I'll drown myself, swear to God." But that's not true. It's not strong enough to drown myself over. It's definitely enough to make me an insufferable prick, however, and to verbally abuse anyone within earshot and occasionally break things.

No rest for the wicked

Three hours from now, I'll have been a nonsmoker for six days. See how I did that, messing with the present and future tenses or whatever the hell they're called? Aspiring writers, take note.

I'm using nicotine gum as well as Allen Carr's "Easyway" book. I may have written about Carr before--he's a former 3-pack-a-day smoker who owns a bunch of quit-smoking clinics in Europe, but he's largely unknown here. The first time I read Carr's book, I quit smoking accidentally--no lie. Anyway, the book fades in effectiveness somewhat, with repeated readings, and since the quit-smoking program I contacted offered free nicotine gum, I thought "why not?".

I'm pleased to report that I have almost no desire to ever smoke again. The gum takes care of the actual physical cravings, while the book reassures me that I'm not actually missing out on anything. So far so good. I think one additional, err, asset is that I'm emotionally dead inside. For those of you who've quit in the past, you know it can be quite emotional as your brain tries every possible way to get you to agree to suck on a cancer stick again. I frankly just don't give a fuck anymore, about anything, so when the brain winds up and prepares to pitch a fit, another part of my brain is like, "throw it on the pile, bitch."

Oh, another thing about the gum: Some of you know that I gave up cigars some years ago because I hated getting into a long-term relationship with a 45-minute cigar. I just wanted that quick 4 minute cigarette fix and then I could move on with my life. Well, I'm starting to feel the same way about the gum. It's 20-30 minutes of chewing and keeping it tucked, and I'm just like, well, I've got shit to do. So that will probably be my exit plan from the gum.

One of the things I was unprepared for, with the giving up of the coffee, and the internet porn, and the cigarettes, is how much extra time I had in my day. At 20 cigarettes per day, that's over an hour and a half of just sitting on the front porch, puffing away. Internet porn used to suck up another 0-120 minutes per day, I suppose (hey, I freely admit to being a perv, fuck off), with maybe 30-40 being the average. OK, so take all that time, then add to it the fact that I can only sleep 6 hours a night, where once I relished a full 8-9 hours, and I've got a shitload of extra time available. Boy, does it suck.

I'm awake, but I can't focus on anything. I have recreational things to do, but I don't enjoy anything. I don't want to hang out with anyone, or do anything with anyone. My only remaining vice is beer (well, and narcissism), but I don't drink that until after 8 o'clock. I can't nap, due to whatever withdrawal symptoms. Honestly, I don't know what to do with all of this extra time. I'm going to have to get a dead-end job or something.

Honestly, I'm not complaining. I mean, it's not like anyone can do anything about it. I just expect that the insomnia and the emotional flatline are just part of the process and will pass eventually. It sure is annoying in the meantime, however.

So I quit jerking off to internet porn...

Or anything else, actually, 22 days ago. Believe me, for the past week, I've tried to come up with a more delicate way to write that opening sentence, but I couldn't find a way to do it without being overly euphemistic. I was inspired to do this by a subreddit on reddit.com, r/nofap. That's not exactly true. I was inspired by several different sources, but the one I'm willing to talk about publicly is /nofap.

What's up with /nofap? The movement was started by people who were inspired by this incredibly boring TEDx video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU.

While boring, the guy does make a good point: Sex involves another person, or people, sweat, pheromones, and a tremendous sense of well-being after orgasm. Internet porn involves none of that, just release, lethargy, and possibly a slinking sense of shame afterwards. Which kind of experience would you rather have?

The /nofap people also promise a whole smorgasbord of other benefits: More energy, better self-confidence, better work performance, more free time, more hard drive space, 50% testosterone increase after a week, etc. I have a history, documented here, of doing dumber health-related things, plus I thought it was time to re-boot my sexuality, so I decided to give it a shot. My results so far:

I do have a lot more energy, but it's not the energy that you want to have. It's not a joyous "Yay, I'm awake!" type energy, rather a mean buzz-saw energy that gets me out of bed cranky and ready to punch something. I wake up every morning at 7:30 (no matter what time I went to bed), and the voices in my head sound exactly like Natalie Portman rapping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8e6-IeQ0aw

I was actually so 'roided up the other day that I wanted to rape a rhinocerous. Not because I wanted my penis inside of a rhino, but because I thought it would be a good challenge. Consequently, I've been working out nearly every day to burn off some of that energy, which takes the edge off for a while. Thank god I quit drinking coffee at the same time or I'd have gone on a killing spree by now.

In addition to more energy, I also can't concentrate on anything. My brain is in a constant fog. If my writing seems a little less, err, florid on this entry, that's why. Or maybe it's the drastic reduction in my caffeine intake. I don't even know anymore. So I'm physically energetic but mentally tired all the time. Awesome.

Other promised side effects I've noticed: Increased self-confidence? Check. Better work peformance? Check. Inspiration to actually get out of the house and get laid? Check.

All in all, I'd say the experience is remarkably similar to quitting smoking, which I'll be doing (AGAIN) here shortly. I'm on day 22 of /nofap and have another 68 days to go in the challenge.

PS: I quit coffee, kind of accidentally, to remove a trigger that causes me to smoke. I now have 2 cups of green tea in the morning (still caffeinated, but not the angry buzz-saw caffeination that coffee has) and an occasional Mountain Dew while working (so, 3 sodas a week).