Ciggyfree Blog & Gov Alert

This will be my last post for a while. I am going on the road . So I don’t know when I will have access to a computer. I am going to California for a wedding – not mine. I already had one of those.

I really like a road trip. It’s fun to get out on the highway and just cruise on down the road. It is also a major trigger for smoking. So I will have to be on guard for that.

Another major trigger is hanging out in a casino with all those smokers. You can’t get away from it, and it could drive you crazy if you let it. So I will have to be on guard for that too.

When I get a chance to post, I will do so and let you know if I had any real problems, or won any money. I doubt either will happen. I have done this once on this quit already, at about five weeks in and got through that.

I will not be in the chat room for a while, figure until the 18th of Sep. I hope you chatters will carry on. Just join the room if it’s not active, and wait, someone will join you..

I will have a great time, and when I get back, I will start posting semi-regularly like I have. Take care.

Zzyzx

I had always thought of smoking as a choice. Some people smoke, and some people don’t, as they see fit. After all, this is a free country. Even during those times I was trying to quit, I looked at smoking as optional behavior.

I have a different point of view now. Since I am examining all my attitudes with a critical eye, I have decided that I think continuing to smoke is not really a choice, it is surrender. You cannot in all honesty call an addiction a choice. I know that the majority of the time, I was smoking to treat withdrawal symptoms. All the other stuff I convinced myself of about liking to smoke, and relaxing with a cigarette, and all those things were just lies. My smoking was compelled by my addiction.

An addiction drives the behavior that feeds it. It doesn’t ask your opinion, it doesn’t need a license, and it doesn’t care about consequences. The only choices involved with an addiction are to surrender to it, or break it. The behavior it controls is a symptom of the addiction; it is the addiction that is the enemy.

For the most part, being addicted to cigarettes is an unintended consequence of smoking. No one in their right mind chooses to be addicted. Most of us started smoking for other, stupid reasons which are pretty lame after all these years. We smoke long enough to become addicted. The initial decision to smoke is a choice, but once the addiction takes hold, it is a compulsion. At that point we either give in to it or fight it. Those are the only choices.

It may not be a very big deal what I think about the ‘choice’ to smoke. But it’s all part of changing my thinking, as part of my fight against addiction. I am not going to just go along with the old ways of thnking. People who tell me it’s their choice to smoke are lying to me like I lied to myself.

What really matters now is that even though we are addicted, we can choose to stop smoking. We do have that option. If you do not choose to fight it, then you have chosen surrender.
Zzyzx

One of the problems I have had when I quit before, is weight gain. I would transfer my smoking habits to eating habits. And of course I would eat the wrong things. I knew, since I quit for specific health reasons, that gaining weight is not an option.

As I prepared myself to quit this time, I looked ahead at what I would do about displacing the smoking behavior. In past quits, my favorite distraction from cravings was M&Ms. I also used food as a reward for making progress in my quit. I would always feel better for a little while when eating any deliciously evil and unhealthy food. I found that Tootsie Roll Pops were an excellent placebo for the physical act of smoking.

Just as you can imagine, I would pretty much blow up like a balloon when quitting smoking. And then I would compound the problem by not losing it when I went back to smoking. So each time I quit, I would step up, and never step down. I ended up looking like a human bowling ball, pretty much.

This time, gaining weight was out of the question. I just could not afford to do so anymore. Not only that, I have to lose weight. So I decided that it would be real torture to starve myself and crave cigarettes at the same time, but I didn’t have any choice. So I gave up all the things I like so well, Pepsi, chocolate, bread, potatoes and all that stuff. And I didn’t miss it even half as much as I anticipated.

I realize now that my eating habits had a lot in common with my smoking habits. I let the behavior take control, and I did not care to think about what I was doing. The food I ate was just as much self-medication for my feelings as smoking was. Just another crutch. And that kind of food abuse is every bit as self-destructive as smoking.

I have lost over eighty (yes, 80) pounds since I quit smoking. You will lose weight when you stop pouring sugar down your neck at the rate I was doing it. And the daily exercise helps too.

It just goes to show you that a person can take control of their life, and change the things that need changing. We have the power to do what we need to do.

Zzyzx

There is an aspect of my nature that is susceptible to being hooked on addiction. I have seen it referred to as the inner junkie, and that’s the way I think of it. I know it is not some other entity simultaneously occupying my mind, but since I have poetic license, I will write about it like it is.

I have known for a long time that there is a junkie in me. For most of the years I was smoking, I was not oblivious to the fact that I was addicted. I just accepted it as a part of my life. I didn’t really think about that inner junkie, and didn’t really care to think much about it. The junkie in me kept a low profile, and would act in subtle ways to keep me feeding the addiction. It hid in the dark corners of my nature, and pulled strings I never felt to make me dance to its tune. It’s past time for me to drag the inner junkie out into the light of day, and take a hard look at it.

The first word that comes to mind about it is selfish. The inner junkie only cares for its own need. It is not willing to look at the greater good; it only wants the gratification it seeks regardless of consequences. The fact that what it wants is poisoning my body does not matter one bit to it. All it knows is hunger.

Another one of its attributes is that it is relentless. It never gives up. It works night and day to get what it wants. It works on both the conscious and subconscious level to control my behavior.

It is cunning, and very adaptable. It plants ideas and thoughts of all kinds in my mind, to get me to feed it. It is very sneaky, often attacking from an unexpected direction. It will be direct in its demands, but often is obtuse.

It is the biggest liar I have ever known. Some of the lies are so transparent that it’s laughable. Others are so sublime you I don’t even know it’s the junkie talking. It knows what I want to hear to let it control me, and will use that knowledge against me.

It is vicious. When it does not get what it wants, it rages out of control, and bears down with everything it has. Over time it weakens, when it’s not fed. But it can be horrible at times.

The inner junkie is not just about smoking. It can fixate on other things as well. At one time, its second favorite hobby was eating. But I had less withdrawal from skipping the chocolate than I did with quitting smoking. I am sure that craving for a smoke has distracted me from missing food as much as I normally would.

To me, the bottom line with the inner junkie is that it is self-destructive in nature. It is a by-product of detrimental emotions like depression, anger, insecurity and low self-esteem. It is most efficient when I give myself over to negative emotions.

The inner junkie is an ugly thing. It is the antithesis of the instinct to survive. But it only has the power that I give it.

Zzyzx

In order to fight against something, you have to understand it. You just cannot help yourself overcome a thing like addiction without finding out all that you can. Without knowledge, your efforts can go astray, and attack symptoms and not the cause.

I get a lot of information from various web sites and support groups. Every day of this quit, I have read something new about the subject of smoking and strategies for quitting. The saying may be old, but it is true – knowledge is power.

As is true in most everything in life, the process to learn more about the addiction and how to eliminate it has unexpected consequences. Aside from the information that I consume and process, I have developed a real habit of critical thinking.

For the last five and a half months, I have been looking at my behavior and attitudes very closely, with the purpose of weeding out the counterproductive. I look at both what I do, and why I do it, with the intent of finding out the real nature of what and why.

As for smoking, I know a lot more now of what it really is. My way of thinking about it used to be that it is a pleasant activity, one that I enjoy, and it is just a matter of choice. After my numerous quits, failures, long delays at re-quitting, and now this last quit, I really understand what smoking is. It is bondage. I lived to serve the addiction.

There are many reasons why I would smoke. I have smoked because I needed the nicotine. Also, because it was just time to smoke, eve if I didn’t really need one. I smoked to socialize, and to get a break from working. And I used smoking to mask my negative feelings.

I think that’s one reason smoking is so hard to quit. It is a multipurpose, self-administered medication that provides an artificial sense of well-being. Now, you might think that this is pretty much a no-brainer, and you would be right. But seeing it put into words really focuses attention on what it really means.

My attitude now is, smoking is the end result of a whole system of lies. Some are external, like the old advertising campaigns and the product placement strategies of the tobacco pushers. Other lies come from the junkie within, who needs to feed the addiction, and will say anything to get what he wants.

It is within our power to see the truth, if we really look. I will continue to learn all I can about the irrational and self-destructive addiction to smoking. The more I learn the more power I have. More power to quit.

Zzyzx

The newness of this quit has finally worn off. The roller-coaster aspect of craving and relief from craving has gone away. The discovery of new and exciting changes has pretty much stopped. The acquisition of motivational ideas, while not completely ended, has slowed way down too. I am at the point where, it is like I have done my warm-ups, and mental preparation, and have been in the game long enough to settle in and just do the work. It has gotten to be a bit of a grind.

The days have settled into a pattern, one following the other in almost identical fashion. There is a lot of comfort in routine, and a pleasant easiness in what is normal. New habits are starting to become less deliberate, and require less conscious effort. My new patterns of thinking are more easily called into play when I need them. I know what to do, and how to do it, to stay quit. My focus now is in maintaining the momentum I have built up.

This quit, which is by far my longest ever, has developed a rhythm of it’s own that I have never known before. It is still not easy to stay quit. But I am confident that I will stay ciggy-free. I feel like I have found a groove, and a pace I can maintain for the rest of the way.

Even with all that positive stuff, I still have to do the actual work. I am not free yet of the siren song of addiction. It is not as strong, or as frequent as it used to be. But it’s still there, calling me to my doom if I listen. So I have to keep my nose to the grindstone, so to speak, and just keep going one day at a time.

Sometimes people just don’t get it. They tend to think that they can continue on with life just as it is and not have to change anything about themselves. They forget that life really is about change, and fail to witness the evidence as marked by the four seasons…

They can become their own worst enemy in the battle to quit smoking if they convince themselves that they just need:

One more puff
One more cigarette
One more pack
One more carton
One more week
One more month
One more year
One more decade

They can continue hurting themselves for the rest of their natural lives and turn their time into something addictively insane during the interim.

They mark their days as being an entirely productive experience while they suck on the other end of a toxic pesticide stick. And they do this every thirty to ninety minutes! Is this you? It was me 2.5 years ago.

Hey Listen!

Don’t miss the mark! Get off the butts and get busy with life. Only you can choose to be proactive, and live to breathe!

Observe the four seasons closely:

Spring is birth
Summer is youth
Fall touts middle age
While Winter bleeds the elderly…

Know your limitations. Everything in life is circular. What you do in your lifetime will eventually come back to bless or haunt you. Use your time on earth wisely.

Don’t miss the mark!

~robbbster

The Ciggyfree chat room is a lot like Las Vegas. What happens there stays there. So I can’t say anything specific. I can, however, describe in general terms what kind of fun we have there.

I really enjoy talking to other people who are quitting. We have so much in common. I completely understand what they are going through, and they understand me. No one knows this quitting smoking business like a quitter.

I get a kick out of listening to a good rant, or a powerful rave. It is fun to watch other people let off a little steam. And sometimes, I even enjoy cutting a rant loose myself. It is therapeutic to a ranter, and its fun to score it when they are done.

While I like to have a lot of fun chatting with folks, and telling my best jokes, I always remember the purpose behind it all. It is to support people who are quitting smoking. If you need a distraction, or you are mad and need to vent, or just want to have some laughs, come on and join us. I am there, usually, from about 7:00 PM CDT (US) until I get too tired. On weekends, I try to keep the same schedule, and maybe some during the day. I can chat and watch football at the same time – men are real good multitaskers.

Zzyzx

Sometimes, I think of all those years that I smoked, and it makes me mad. I tend to feel that it was a great big waste. A waste of my life, my time, and my money. I visualize a huge pile of cigarette butts that I have smoked. I also visualize a trail of butts from the right coast of the country going west to the other side of the Pacific, representing all the places I smoked.

It is a bitter thing, indeed, to realize that my main purpose in life, for all those years, seemed to be to consume cigarettes. It is like everything else was just killing time until I could light up the next one. Smoking dominated my life, and I followed along like I was on a leash. It is a very demoralizing thing for me. It has been a great big negative factor for me in my previous quits. This line of thinking has always lead me to believe it is too late to do any good - so smoke away.

While thinking about it this morning, as I was on my morning walkabout, I decided I can turn this negative into a positive. I cannot change the past, but the past can give me the moral authority to say; I know what I am talking about – smoking is a terrible thing. I am speaking from experience when I tell people how bad it made me feel, how hard it is to quit, and how much better I feel now. Nothing communicates better than experience.

I does not make me feel any better about all those years of smoking. I still regret every cigarette I ever smoked. But at least I can think that it was not a waste, if it can help someone else stop smoking, or never start.

Zzyzx

When I was a smoker, there were times when I contemplated the nature of smoking. I would think of the effort it takes to get those cigarettes into my hands. The farmers that grow the tobacco, the companies that buy it, process it, package it, and ship it. The stores that stock the cigarettes and sell them to me. My effort to go to the store to buy them, with money that I get for working. All that effort and work – just so I can burn them up and suck in the smoke. How ridiculous it all seemed, even as I was smoking one. When I thought about it to the point where I decided it was stupid, I would quit thinking about it and light another one. Oh, how lost I once was. I am so glad I finally quit.

But I know, I am one puff away from being that stupid again. I still need to go one day at a time. Vigilance is the word for the day, every day.
Zzyzx

I have been avoiding thinking about a particular subject since I started this quit. But now I think it’s time I take a look at it, and examine it from a new perspective. That subject is relapse.

There are some other names for it in the quit-smoking community. Some call it slipping, some call it busting a quit, some call it by other euphemisms. The reality is that it is plain old failure. I have failed a number of times, after putting in a lot of effort. I need to take an honest look at why I failed before.

I remember each time I decided to end the quit, and go back to smoking. The first couple of times, I just got tired of it. It is hard work, and I decided I just couldn’t do it. The other two times, it was like I was just watching someone else as I bought cigarettes and smoked them.

In all cases, what I was really doing was giving up on myself. I rationalized about it so I would not realize that I was just deceiving myself. I convinced myself that some downright lies were actually the truth, so that I would feel justified in smoking again. Foremost among those lies was that I was better off smoking instead of suffering through quitting any longer. I also doubted my own self-worth, and doubted my ability to keep going. To top that off, I added the feeling that I was deprived of something good, and enjoyable, for little gain.

This self-deception was not a constant factor in my previous quits. In fact, up to a point my quits were mostly positive. I maintained a good attitude for the first few weeks. The problem came at critical moments when I indulged in self-pity, and let my feelings dominate my behavior. I would arrive at the crisis point unprepared to deal with the situation, and therefore, unable to win the fight.

So far, this time, I have refused to doubt myself, or what I am doing. I also refuse to give up on myself. I am doing all I can to learn about addiction and how to really change my thinking. I am using what I learn when I find myself drifting back to the old habits of thinking.

I started this quit with the attitude that smoking is not an option, and have held on to that throughout. That foundation has helped build the quit from day to day. That is something I have to be stubborn about. Not the slightest compromise of that attitude. It has gotten down to that last line of defense a couple of times, but I held on. And now I am starting to fight back.

Zzyzx

This last weekend was a bit on the trying side for me. It was a pretty good challenge to stay away from smoking because of events that really caused a lot of frustration.

It started early Saturday morning, on the first tee. My very first drive was to the right. It was nice and straight, and far. But I aimed it into the trees. That seemed to be the way it went for the rest of the round. I would hit some nice looking shots, the ball would behave the way it’s supposed to when hit with a particular club. But my aim was bad. I don’t think I made a putt all day long. Frustration started early and continued to build.

Then that afternoon I lost my internet connection. I have cable internet so I called the company. I think you know how calling tech support goes. I have to try all the things I already tried. I have to speak to someone who thinks I am an idiot. I know how to find an ip address, and renew it. I know how to trouble shoot a network connection. I repeat all those things, and then I am told it is my modem.

OK, fine, what to do about it. I can go to the local office to exchange it, or I can have a technician come out – in 10 days. Right. The office closes in ten minutes and it takes fifteen to get there. And I am not waiting that long for a technician. So I decide I will go buy a new one. The frustration I brought home from the golf course now has company.

So, after driving across town, spending $85.00, and hurrying back, when I call to get the new MAC address configured, I get a recording. I learn that some dolt has cut a cable somewhere and all of west central Missouri has no cable or internet. So all of that time and effort for nothing. Well, that really causes the old frustration level to go through the roof.

Now, during this time, with the level of frustration rising by the minute, I have to admit I wished I could smoke a cigarette. I had a real strong urge to just abandon all the effort and progress I have made in quitting for the temporary relief of a bad feeling. It was not a reaction I would have chosen, but its one I have learned. When frustrated, a cigarette will help.

Even in the midst of that cacophony of anger and frustration, I recognized why I was feeling the urge to smoke so strongly. I knew I had to deal with it in another way. Smoking is not an option. Smoking does not improve anything. Smoking would not fix my problems. So I took control, and I directed my attention elsewhere. I decided I would just wait until the problem was fixed by the people who needed to fix it. And just forgot about smoking when I got busy with other things.

Being unable to fix my own problems has always been hard on me. But I am using the things I have learned through perseverance in this quit, and the help I get from my friend. Knowledge is power – if you use it. All the theorizing in the world is useless unless you put it into action when you need it. Quitting smoking is more than just not doing something. It is taking control of your life, and not letting the addiction determine your behavior.

Zzyxx

The interesting thing about quitting smoking is the dichotomy between withdrawal and healing. Both aspects can demand as much attention as, say, wrestling alligators. Often at the same time. But in entirely different ways.

Withdrawal has a wide range of characteristics. It can be subtle and work on you at the subconscious level. Or it can be as obvious as a big, slobbering dog and just hammer you physically. Either way, it makes itself evident in many unpleasant ways.

Healing is not necessarily subtle, but it is gradual, and takes time to accumulate. It works as a function of time and metabolism. Your body will not repair all the damage you have done to it, but it will do its work as best it can. You have to pay more attention to the healing because it is not as vigorous as the withdrawal.

It does not take long, once you quit smoking, for both aspects to manifest themselves. Withdrawal starts first, and can get real nasty. But if you wait long enough, you will soon see healing taking place. And this is where things get more interesting.

At first, the balance was tilted much more towards wanting to smoke. But my appreciation of feeling better has been increasing to the point that now, the balance has shifted. The key to this situation is lasting long enough for that change. I have never done that in a quit before

I have found myself simultaneously wanting to smoke and appreciating feeling so much better. Sometimes I think about that, and it strikes me as funny. How could I want to do something that made me feel so bad? Now, I accept the fact that that is the way of the world to want to do something that is bad for me. I accept that idea without needing to understand why it is that way. But I do laugh at it too. Foible, indeed.

The encouraging thing is that the withdrawal is decreasing, and the healing is surging. All I have to do to keep that trend going is not smoke.

Zzyzx

The other day, I talked about that flashback I had when I saw that empty cigarette box laying on the ground. That got me to thinking about smoking as a habit. It was certainly one of my strongest habits until I stopped.

Just the physical act of smoking got to the point of ritual. It really did have it’s own formality, protocol, and rules as far as I am concerned. I had my rules for handling and using the cigarettes that I always tried to keep.

I had to have shirts with pockets, so I could carry my smokes with me. I could not put them in my sock, or roll them up in a sleeve. I had to have a lighter, and keep it in the same pocket. When I walked into a work place, I would transfer them to my laptop bag, and not let people see them. I don’t know why, it was just a rule.

I had to have the box, not the soft pack. I had to open the box one-handed. I had to pull the cigarette out with my lips, and not my fingers. If it was the first one out, I would pinch it with my teeth to get it out.

I handled the cigarette the same way all the time. I would hold it between my forefinger, and middle finger. And always with the right hand, and at the middle knuckles. I would always flick it away when done the same way.

All these things contributed to the comfort level I had when smoking. The need for nicotine drove me to keep smoking, but the habits I developed when supplying myself with the drug also helped addict me. When I quit, I missed handling the cigarettes.

I have used a placebo cigarette before. And it did help with the physical habits. But this time, I decided that the only way to break a habit is to not do it. So I am not using one.

Zzyzx

I have been exercising now for the last few months. I didn’t start that right away, I waited until I was at about three months or so into this quit. I have stuck to it, and even made adjustments in time and distance since I started.

I began by walking around the block where I live four times. The distance is four tenths of a mile. I walked that a couple of weeks, then added another lap. I did five laps for a couple of weeks, and added another. After about a month I decided to go ahead and go to eight laps, for 3.2 miles. I have done that for a few days now.

Even though it’s only walking, It is a lot more exercise than I used to do, and I am a lot older now, so it is still a job of work for me. When I’ve increased my number of laps, I start working on walking at a faster pace than the day before. I always want to beat yesterday’s time.

The only days I have missed walking is when I play golf, and I don’t want to do too much in the heat and humidity. When I don’t walk, or have to delay walking because of weather, I miss it. In spite of the hard work it is. That surprises me.

Having done this for a while now, I have learned some things that apply to my quitting smoking. First, you have to do the work even if you don’t feel like it. The only way to get the benefit is to do the work. Second, it is necessary at times to focus on the short term, and let the long term effects build up from one step at a time. Third, as time goes by, the reward for success accumulates. I feel so much better now than when I first started. And last, but not least, no gain without pain may be a trite saying, but it’s true nevertheless.

On second thought, I don’t really know if walking has taught me those things, or if it was the quitting smoking. Either way, it does not matter, as long as I pay attention to what I did learn. They are true for both hobbies.

Zzyzx

At 2.6 years quit I rarely think of smoking anymore. If I do entertain the concept of smoking I almost always cancel out the thought instantly. The most important aspect of the quit process is to become educated about what smoking does to the human body.

As a young quit I forced myself to watch a Lung Bronchoscopy of a patient with lung cancer. He was a 57 year old man who had a 75 pack year history[1], with carcinoma in the upper portion of his right lung. Or for those who think that you have a lifetime before you have to quit smoking, check out Brandon Carmichael at:
http://www.smokinggotme.com

In hospital settings I’ve watched patients struggle with oxygen tanks and gasp to catch even one breath. I have also stood helpless as a lung cancer patient coughed up bloody phlegm while choking on his own body fluids. I’ve listened to the whistling and wheezing while calculating the buildup of bluish discoloration of oxygen starved faces and clubbed fingers. How much longer will they or you suffer from smoking-related diseases, gasping for the air that that is essential to every human in order to survive?

Replacing wispy shrouds of romanticized longings for the daily cigarette ebbed; craves were slowly replaced over time with alpha iron armor structured in smoking-related disease research. I began to see myself as a female combatant who existed in a world that was torn between personal inalienable rights and too much governmental control. I also learned that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness could not be achieved at the cost of human addiction.

Somewhere a line has to be drawn. Should we give the unborn, babies, toddlers, children, and nonsmokers who live on our planet the right to live and breathe in both private and public air space? Or should we simply delegate the right for smokers to pollute our air space? In 2006 the Surgeon General released a new report on secondhand smoke, which stated that there is no safe level of exposure to the more than 4,000 chemicals, including 11 known human carcinogens in secondhand smoke[2]. The World Health Organization states:

Tobacco is the second major cause of death in the world. It is currently responsible for the death of one in ten adults worldwide (about 5 million deaths each year). If current smoking patterns continue, it will cause some 10 million deaths each year by 2020. Half the people that smoke today -that is about 650 million people- will eventually be killed by tobacco[3].

If you choose to smoke, your smoke is a toxic air contaminant. Be kind to yourself, other people, and to our planet. Just don’t smoke.

~robbbster

[1] Those who smoke 1 pack a day for 75 years or 3 packs a day for 25 years.

[2] The American Legacy Foundation

[3] WHO (World Health Organization), Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI)

Today is one of those days, where the work of quitting smoking just gets tiresome. It started off just fine, and was looking like a normal day. But then, some trivial thing happened, and I let it get to me.

I am finding that I do get more angry at little things more than before I quit smoking. Things that I would never even frown at before, can get me pretty mad sometimes. Many times, I don’t even see it coming, it just flares up unpredictably. What’s even worse is, it tends to last awhile when it happens.

A lot of it has to do with not having that nicotine in my brain, which would help suppress my feelings. Another part is the on-going fight to keep the addiction at bay.

The day-to-day part of a quit is a good way to be successful. You don’t have to overwhelm yourself with quitting, just break it up into small, digestible parts. But that does tend to get monotonous at times and can wear your skin thin.

I think it’s a lot like anything else. It takes conditioning to build up endurance. And it takes time to do the conditioning. So letting myself get mad is just a function of impatience.

I don’t think I can stop this any time soon. But I can work at keeping a lid on it, and getting over it soon. Letting anger take control, and indulging it, is a sure way to bust a quit.

Well, I always did like learning new things.

Zzyzx

Lots of things are different now that I have quit smoking. I have made a lot of adjustments to the way I think, and how I deal with my feelings. I am no longer indifferent to the weather, since I don’t have to go out in it regardless of how hot or cold it is. I don’t have to smoke when I drive, or after a meal anymore. My first thought on waking up is not about where my cigarettes are. I often even forget I am quitting smoking.

The hardest adjustment for me to make has been waiting. I used to be able to wait patiently for as long as it took to smoke a cigarette. I didn’t mind the prospect of waiting too much. I had something I could do to kill the time. I even fooled myself into believing that its fun to stand outside and watch the people go by, while I suck cigarette smoke into my lungs.

Now, waiting is a pain in the neck. I hate it. The idea of going to Wal-Mart is too terrible to contemplate. I always waited outside with a cigarette there. Overall, I am more impatient now. I don’t know if I’ll ever go fishing again. What else is there to do while waiting for the fish to jump on the hook?

I realize now that, in the past, maybe I was not as patient as I thought I was. Maybe I was just looking for excuses to feed my addictions. Either way, I hate to wait now.

It occurs to me that being a quitter is something that I was taught was the wrong thing to be.

However, smoking is definitely the wrong thing to do.

So quitting and smoking must be like multiplying negatives, because the result is positive.

Or it’s a case of two wrongs making a right

ZZYZX

Dreams are funny things. I have two kinds of dreams. I daydream a lot. Sometimes I just let my mind go wandering around an idea or situation wherever it wants to go. I start the dream off in a general direction, and then I go along for the ride. I also have dreams when I am sleeping. Those dreams are different because I don’t consciously control them.

Once in a while, I will dream about smoking. I have done that on every quit. The first time I did so on this current quit, was on the way home from visiting my grandchildren. I dreamed I had bought a pack of cigarettes, and smoked one. So when I woke up, I had the feeling that I had blown my quit all to (some place where ice cubes don’t last long) and that I may as well go ahead and finish off the pack. But there was no pack. Needless to say, that was a bad craving day indeed. A road trip is a big trigger to me, getting home and unpacking the car is a big trigger to me, and having that dream was a big trigger to me. I refer to that day, in my mind, as the Day of the Living Dead.

I was pretty resentful of my brain for allowing me to dream that dream. I thought my mind was acting like a traitor, helping the addiction instead of me. After all, it’s like fighting fire with gasoline. Quitting smoking is hard enough that I don’t need various body parts off doing their own thing. Mind and spirit have to work together here to quit smoking, so I was mad.

I had another dream two nights ago, one that was sort of a smoking dream. In my dream, my spouse (who has been quit about eleven years) had a pack of coffin nails, and gave me one. It was already lit, and I felt I had permission to smoke it. But I didn’t smoke it. My dream self took a look at the thing, and realized that it would end my quit. I thought of having to start all over again at day one. All that progress would go right to the recycle bin. And I tossed it away. Without even a twinge of regret. Then I went on to dream other stuff.

Now, I am no expert on dreams. I don’t believe anyone really is. But it does not take a doctorate in psychology to see that this aspect of a dream is significant. It shows me that I have turned a corner. I am turning into a real, no-kidding, not just wishing to be ex-smoker.

ZZYZX

I had a weird experience yesterday, when I saw an old, empty cigarette box laying in my yard. It was one I had emptied in my smoking days. I used to sit on my front porch and smoke, sometimes I neglected to clean up my trash. It’s been there a while, and I just noticed it yesterday as I went into the house.

I had a real strong mental image of the mechanics of opening a fresh pack of lung darts. That is something I am so familiar with, but have not done in a long time. I could feel every nuance of the process as if I were actually doing it.

I could feel my fingers prying up the little strip used to rip open the cellophane covering the box. The way that pulling the strip felt as it separated the top portion of the lid. The way the little rectangular top would flutter in the breeze while I still held that strip between my thumb and finger. How it would look drifting away when I let go, gone and forgotten after having fulfilled its destiny.

I could feel my thumb separating the leading edge of the lid from the bottom part of the package. The feel of the lid as I pried it open to reveal the bright, shiny foil that covered the tops of the cigarettes. The smell of the tobacco as the lid opened. I remembered the exact tension that my finger and thumb had to overcome to get that top foil cover off of the end of the butts, so I could lift one out.

I remembered how I would have to pinch the first cigarette hard with my thumb and forefinger, and pull it out of that close, machine packed set of twenty coffin nails It was almost as real as when I had actually opened that pack, over four months ago.

That’s as far as it went. I didn’t continue the visualization beyond the act of getting out that first smoke. I didn’t even really have any craving or urge of any kind. It was just a memory.

It flashed into my consciousness like a bolt of lightning on a clear day. The vision was vivid, detailed, and strong. Then it disappeared into whatever alternate universe it came from, almost as fast. It wasn’t my usual smoking fantasy. It didn’t get me started on a long drawn out daydream..

The addiction has its way of attacking. It doesn’t want to starve. It fights dirty and mean. But in this case, it was to no avail. I have to stay ready for anything, but I am confident I can succeed.

ZZYZX

Congratulations go out to robbbster, for finishing another M in her collection. Two and a half years. Thirty months done. Double Old Fogy plus Half Old Fogy. From where I stand now, that looks like Mt. Everest.

You have to have a lot of respect for anyone that can stay quit that long. I know what a job of work it was to get there. And it deserves some recognition. So, robbbster, I stand up and tip the old ball cap to you, for the effort, the determination, the stubbornness, and the will to stay free from this addictions for so long. Well done, indeed.

It is great to see other people do good things. Especially people who do as much for others as robbbster does. She does a great job with the ciggyfree web site, she helps noobs in the forums, and she keeps me in line by editing this blog.

It is these Old Fogeys who show us amateurs the way. They show us what’s possible. All we have to do is follow their lead.

Thanks for all you do, robbbster. Again, congratulations on this milestone. It is truly a great accomplishment.

ZZYXX