This is something I’ve been playing around with inside myself as I transition back to the life of a non-smoker.
Last week I had a detox period that was totally smokeless that ranged between 36 and 40 hours. Some highly irregular and difficult sleeping was included. Maybe a total of 6 to 9 hours across 2 nights. I’d sleep after feeling restless and stressed for about an hour before waking again for another hour of laying about distressed. After about the 2 or 3 cycle of that I’d finally be able to transition into deeper states of sleeping which were very difficult to break away from and make it into work.
During that detox period it often would feel as though I was under water. Like a cold sweat was breaking, but I would remain dry. It was an internal feeling, like a cool fire, all throughout my body. Easy to maintain focus within so long as I had a task at hand. Work has been a great distraction from embracing the thoughts of smoking.
However, there were other times throughout this where I felt a great difficulty in caring about anything. Things would come and go in the mind. I would laugh easily. Even though I had no need or inclination to sleep, it was as if a big yawn were always on the horizon of the moment… fun stuff. Multi-tasking between work, talking with coworkers, and managing the Sz storm inside proved difficult in these states, but they were lasting no more than an hour at best. I believe the brain was literally reprogramming itself as it learned to operate on even lower levels of nicotine.
Now I haven’t completely quit smoking, but I will say since that original detox… it has been much easier to go without smoking, without feeling to much pressure from it. A pressure that quite clearly drives me back to smoking.
I bought a pack of smokes last thursday and they last 24 to 48 hours… and after that a friend of mine gave me a bottle of tobacco which lasted through saturday night. Even after all that sunday was an easy day to go without smoking as much. I had some pipe tobacco left that I smoked in the morning and I had 1 cigarette that I got from a friend that evening.
Monday after work I biked over to my brother’s house and smoked some pipe tobacco. I had also bummed a cigarette from a coworker before leaving work.
So I spent two days there only smoking twice and more or less detoxing in all states otherwise. I found smoking a bit did strengthen my resolve by eliminating a craving and satisfying my curiosity and literally giving me the strength to get back to my life and keep thinking soberly.
Today was a different day. It was a day off work and 3 hours after waking I really couldn’t think of a damn thing to do. I was restless and disinterested in everything. I didn’t feel a chemical pull to smoke, but a psychological one. So, I bought a pack. Boredom is as much an enemy as the nicotine itself when trying to quit. Boredom is a product of disinterest… and smoking helped me move on to the desire to do things. Subconsciously and consciously after smoking my mind was like, “well you’ve already done that… so now what else is there.”
It’s a new challenge and it took nearly a week to get to. That basically non-nicotinated state which was just me versus the world and time. What is it I wanted to do? Fallout 4 entertained me for a few hours, but I felt depleted after… my mind got locked into a quest on how to procure some smoke. Old habits die hard and I failed to settle out until I got a friend to spot me a pack.
Primary insights I’m finding in this little internal experimentation I’m going through is that addiction really is a mental illness. It can even be considered psychotic. It’s a web-work of delusions and excuses… a game of internal chemistry and psychological chains… it literally requires a whole new look on life and the self in order to enjoy a life that is smoke free. Health is the obvious answer as to why to quit smoking… but many of us are already doomed to being “unhealthy” at best, smoking or not… or contrarily we feel that we are in good health, smoking or not.
There is different clarity to it. I want to quit smoking so that I might actually feel “needless” for once. To sit on the couch or outside and not have a damn thing on that mental plate about things I’m going to consume… but to instead be thankful that I have eaten and am not hungry and I am then ready to do other things.
It’s very strange to peer into the “straight-edge” life. I have always regarded it as highly lame… When I try to gaze into the lives of those who do not drink or smoke or do drugs… I just see a lot of lameness. Old fogies and churchies, or workaholics, strict parents that sedate themselves behind televisions… long redundant chattery of middle-aged women. That’s it… that’s what the straight-edge life looked like to me… I found I had to DISREGARD all of those biases and find what I want sobriety to be for myself.
I just wanted to still feel cool afterwards. The tireless fatigue of being overly caffeinated and buzzed on cigarettes bought me a lot of connections to the world that wouldn’t have otherwise. Like how nice it is to drive at high speeds at night with nothing but the clear white lines of the high-way and the street’s sidelights. It’s like an arcade game… everything lit up including the signs. Those apple green and cherry red stoplights. SPECTACULAR! The darkness brings cool air and independence from a world that sleeps. A sort of dominance sets in… yes I am here… it is just me… I am free… I like this place for once.
To my surprise… after the last week. It really is under the control of the individual to feel how they wish to feel about themselves. Those things they connect to in the world do not disappear when sobered. Nay! the only thing that disappears is the placebo effect of them being more intriguing then they are… in place of that high though, one can find constance… those feelings can become constant.
That’s me checking in for the night.
Psychotic symptoms dwindle drastically after the first 12-18 hours of not smoking. It takes about 12 hours for the body to process what nicotine and other chemicals are present. From there it might feel like you’re suffering… but the body and mind are actually HEALING! It became a thrill in itself to watch the body heal and the mental states change. I almost do better now to not smoking during a craving than in between them. After having SZ I LOVE that feeling of healing. The physical intensity of the bodily confusion and the strange befuddled stranglements of a mind that is squirming for any reason to falter from it’s pursuit of cleanliness. It’s hilarious and every hour added between the last smoke and the next is PROGRESS!..
It’s measurable… don’t say I’ll smoke in thirty minutes… you should say “I’ll see how I feel in 30 minutes” I bet if you take that approach… you’ll find you are less inclined to be clamoring for that drag.
I needed to write something so there it is… it’s almost bed time for me here. Just waiting to pull a loaf of bread.
Will catch y’all on the flip.
-Az