At 5:15 PM tonight (central time), I will have gone a full seven days without a cigarette.
It's hard sometimes; this weekend was especially difficult as the craving for cigarettes was almost too much to bear at times. I'm not sure if I can describe why, really, aside from the fact that on weekends, when I'm off work, I have the time and ability to smoke if I want to, when during the normal week I do not. During the work week, I'd have to get up from my desk, go downstairs, go outside, smoke, come inside, wash my hands, go back to work. Or, conversely, I could only go outside on my deck and smoke when I was at home, could only do it in my own private time and I would have to meter out that time for it -- only when I had the time or energy to do it, and only when it wasn't interrupting something else (like shower time, sleep time, etc).
Up until this week, I didn't realize how much of my actual day was taken up by me being outside with a cigarette in my hand or on my lips. It's a fair chunk of time, I realized, that I was basically locking myself outside to take part in this nasty habit. I don't have to worry about that with vaping, as I do that indoors anywhere I want, anytime, unless I'm at work or in a public place (like a store or restaurant). Sadly, we're not allowed to vape at our desks in the office. If we could, I'd get so much more work accomplished as I'd only have to get up to go to the bathroom or grab another cup of coffee from the break room.
In the mornings now, I make my coffee at home and sit in the living room with the cats, who usually look at me funny, with my vape mod in my hand. I vape as much as is necessary, then I get up, go get dressed, and go to work.
As for health or energy effects, I really notice no differences.
I don't notice any difference in my ability to breathe, or any real difference in my allergies. The wife says I don't cough nearly as much now, but I remind her that my cough wasn't so much from smoking, but from my allergies, and that I still cough occasionally on vape (especially if I take too large a hit or have the watts turned up too high on one of my mods).
I don't have any more or less energy. I don't sleep any better or worse. My libido is the same. My bowels are regular. I don't feel dehydrated or over-hydrated. For all intents and purposes, everything's pretty much the same.
Except my ability to smell -- which has definitely come back quite a bit, even in a week's time. I have noticed that. Smokers basically have an incredibly dulled sense of smell and taste. My taste is normal, but my sense of smell has indeed increased now that I'm off the cigarettes -- which is good, at least.
People have told me the first week is and will be the hardest of all, and while I understand that, the vast majority of the time I've felt...well, normal. I have had cravings from time to time, but vaping for a bit does tend to lessen or eliminate those. Sometimes the cravings are quite bad, quite strong, to the point where I pace back and forth and want to pull my hair out. But they do, eventually, go away. Keeping busy helps -- finding something to occupy my mind, even if it's playing a game on my phone for a few minutes or reading a news article -- will make it ease off somewhat.
"I can't promise I'll never smoke again," I told the wife. "I can't say that I'll never go to the store and pick up a pack of smokes when and if I want them."
I am correct in saying this; I can make no absolute promises that I'm not sure I can keep. In the short run -- I've only been a non-smoker for a week -- I can deal with it, stay off the cigarettes, compartmentalize and vape a lot more to make up for it, but in the long run? I don't know, I can't promise anything. I can only take it day by day, one week at a time. As the days go on, the cravings do get worse -- I won't lie. It's either going to come to the point where I can push through them and ignore them long enough to where they go away, or I can't.
On some level, I think I'm going into a psychological or physiological panic mode. I have smoked for so long that when I stop, even with vaping, everything inside me panics at full throttle. I hear those little voices inside my head (not schizophrenic ones, but more like the devil on my shoulder) telling me things like how long can you do this? or do you even know who you are without cigarettes? do you like that person? are you even the SAME person? And I honestly don't know how to answer those questions.
I know the answer to the last one, at least, if I don't have some sort of nicotine replacement to get me off the cigarettes, and the answer is an absolute no, I am not the same person.
I know the answer because the last time I had to quit smoking it was not because I wanted to, but because I had zero money to do so. I had just moved to Kansas, the ex had just entered grad school and I was jobless and unable to even get the local sub shop to hire me, much less able to get a job anywhere else, and I had $3 in my bank account when a pack of cigarettes at the time was about $4. My mind was foggy. I couldn't sleep well. I was having cold sweats off and on, and was almost constantly constipated. I was a terrible, evil person to be around at any time for any reason, and was very close to having an absolute psychotic break. When I finally was able to get a pack of cigarettes again after a few weeks, once the ex got her first paychecks and we could afford to go to the grocery store again, I smoked through three of them in rapid succession and cannot describe or put into words the sense of euphoria and bliss I felt, and all was well again -- I was, once more, myself, in the span of ten minutes or so. It was an immediate night and day difference.
That's the hold cigarettes have on me. I'm sure if you are or have ever been an addict for anything, you understand what I'm taking about.
I've been a smoker for all of my adult life, and this is the first time I've ever quit willingly and made the choice to do so. I mean, the vapes absolutely are the only things helping me to do it, yes, but that only goes so far -- the rest is willpower. The rest is me wanting to be done. And the funny thing about willpower is that I have a bunch of it when I have my vape in front of me and accessible, but have absolutely none of it when I don't or when the vape doesn't seem to be working the way it needs to.
For as much as I do not care what people think of me in most situations, however, the same does not hold true when I'm trying to stay off the cigarettes. I have purposely not mentioned anything on my personal Facebook page about me quitting, nor will I make a big deal about it to anyone but close friends and family (namely, the wife and her parents, and very few others). This is because, in the case that I do fail, with the more people who know the more I will be judged and the more I'll have to admit to my shortcomings. I'm a Slytherin; we don't like admitting our shortcomings. Ever. And I do not take criticism of any sort well -- I never have. I don't want anyone to have expectations of me that I fail to live up to. I don't want people to look at me down their noses and think (or say) "oh, so he's not perfect, he is fallible." My choices, as well as my abilities or inabilities to complete my goals, are mine and mine alone -- I refuse to be judged poorly for them by anyone.
I will, of course, keep everyone updated on what happens and how I feel.
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