Current Status and Nicorette

I took this questionnaire kind of thing while I was at a clinic earlier today. It's based on those few puffs I continue taking randomly, so this is what my current status is like. Not bad. BUT.

You notice how it REALLY doesn't help someone who is quitting because of reasons like mine? I hate the addiction, and what Nicorette does is, it just gives me another avenue to continue being addicted to nicotine! I mean, fine, it's a decent product and it may actually help people quit smoking. But if this was really a social product rather than a for-profit one, their questionnaire (and other such publications) would also advise NOT shifting to Nicorette at all in certain cases.

For example, my score is 0 (zero) and if I take the Nicorette replacement therapy, even the one with the lowest dosage, I would end up consuming more nicotine than I already take, effectively reversing the process of quitting smoking. It is NOT advisable for me to use Nicorette. The least a corporation can do is be honest when trying to sell their product.

I wonder why there isn't any NGO that works on quitting smoking without any support from tobacco corporations or states/governments.

I guess there is a lot of money to be made from people's helpless addiction. Is that why?

Quit Attempt #45645

Today is day four since I quit smoking. After two days, I had immense withdrawal symptoms, such as persistent coughing and chest pains, body ache, a mind-throbbing headache, loss of appetite and well, cravings of course. I felt like I was dying. I ended up having a fever and intense weakness - and those are terrible things to go through in the middle of the night in a foreign country when there is no one to look out for you.

A smoker buddy came over yesterday and I ended up buying a whole pack for him, stealing two cigarettes from it in the process. These two I shared with two people who spent some time with me in the past two days, puff by puff, to help stop me from going back to smoking (by being forced to buy a whole pack when I can just do with a loose cigarette to fight the urge).

I think my appetite just returned today as I had my fourth meal a while back.

Actually, most people would suggest (and rightly so) that I phrase it as "an attempt to quit smoking" (in the first line of this post) rather than "I quit smoking". When it has been nine years since you've been trying to quit, it's quite normal for people to be uber skeptical.

But it's nice to have a person or two who believes in you. *smiles*

Ideal Conditions for Quitting Smoking

If you really must quit, as I'm sure you reconsider often, you need the following conditions to make it happen:

1. You're out of cigarettes completely. This means you have checked all possibilities of finding some tobacco, some cigarettes or any form of nicotine in your house. (Beware: This exercise can involve going through hundreds of empty cigarette packs lying in the corner of your room to find that one cigarette.)

2. You have absolutely no money to buy cigarettes. Yes, that means you have no cash, no money in your bank account, and all your credit cards are maxed out. Oh, and you can't borrow either (all your friends are broke).

3. You can't bum a cigarette off of a friend. That may be because you're in a foreign land with no friends, or because all your friends have gone to visit foreign lands. Or worst case scenario - you have lost all your friends. Whatever the case, getting a cigarette (or any form of nicotine) from any friend is just not an option for you.

4. You have a girlfriend or wife or mother or father or brother or sister or daughter or son or a good friend - just ANY loved one who can give you moral support as you whine about your endless nicotine cravings and withdrawal symptoms day and night. (This blog does that work for me - haha!)

5. You are able to become excessively busy with useless or useful activities (it doesn't really matter). That way, you get minimal time to 'miss' smoking. Of course the urges are still there.

Quitters collect here...

I remember I got a random email in January this year. I had made an attempt to quit smoking around that time and I blogged about how I had quit. Apparently someone read that post and thought I had quit smoking successfully then when I really hadn't. So I was never able to answer the email. To be perfectly honest, I don't think I am currently in a position to advise on how to quit smoking, since my most successful attempt was also in vain. I intend to try to quit again (and I will never quit trying); till then, I will just share the email here.

Hey man,

You don't know me, and I dont know you. This is a fake email address, and that ain't my real name.

But I need your help. You quit smoking right. Its in that vein.

The guys I hang around with smoke, and till last semester, I was staunch against not smoking, but this sem, I dunno what happened, but I started, (half cos of the insanely cheap duty free cigs these guys had got). I thought that as long as I dont start buying packs, I wont start smoking 'proper'. Well, the duty free ones are over and I bought a pack today.

I cant even give a reason to why I started. Absolutely no explanation. Last week I decided that it was not worth it and that I wont smoke.

Apparently, that dint work, and 3 days later, I was smoking again. Today I bought a pack. Weekend, I smoked enough. (6 in a day is more than enough for me!)

I feel that Im getting hooked onto em, that too just for a few minutes of kick that the cigarette gives.

Fuck man, really, what do I do... Its tough being around these guys who smoke, my best friends.... but will power is something that's failed me, quite a few times now.

A month of smoking, i doubt its done any real harm to me yet, and I seriously dont wanna get hooked.. but I feel im getting hooked..

Please dude, if u can take some time out, and reply to this mail... ill be grateful..

Thanks a lot dude...

Marcos

P.S.: like i said, that aint my real name. This email isn't even how I type. Identity secrecy is a must.

Chimeral Desires

Wednesday night, in an attempt to reduce cost and amount smoked, I went half and half on a cigarette pack with a friend.

The result of having company while smoking: each of us smokers finished 10 cigarettes in two hours. (There are 20 in one pack.)

So far I haven't purchased any more cigarettes since then. I did, however, try to acquire cigarettes from friends around Sehri time, as the deadline to start fasting approached earlier in the morning today - but without any luck. I smoked Sheesha instead (which has almost zero percent nicotine).

Right now I am feeling more thirsty than I'm craving a smoke. Maybe I'll quit now?

Cold Turkey Day

Ruminations: Day 1/The Day/The Big Day/Cold Turkey Day/Quit Day

(Sunday, October 1, 2006)

My real age is 23 [on paper its 22]. The first time when I smoked was when I was 12. The first time I inhaled a cigarette [instead of just puffing] was the same year - 12. I would buy a couple of Gold Leaf cigarettes, and cycle away in some fields close to my residence area. Each day I bought a new pack of matches [Rs.1] and threw them away. For me there was no peer pressure to smoke. I guess I just wanted to do "something bad". It was the same time when I had developed that annoying little moustache, and of course, my voicebox grew in size so that it became an Adam's apple.

The first time I was suspected of smoking was when I was 14. My mother found a cigarette in a cassette cover and a smashed matchbox in my school bag's pocket that I had forgotten to throw away. I always had a pack of mint candies [HOEST] and in time my mother realised what the purpose of these candies was.

When I was 16, my being a smoker was no secret in the house. For one, the bathroom always smelt of smoke [I didn't bother going to the fields by then]. In school, I had classfellows who wouldn't stand next to me because I smelt of smoke. Of course, I used the school washrooms to smoke. One day I got late for my English class and my teacher, Hasan Shikoh, came after me and found me on the way. He detected the smoke immediately. Thank goodness he didn't make too much of a fuss. That was my closest call to being caught smoking in school.

The same year, my mother, upon realising I was becoming a hardcore smoker, got really upset. She came to my room and lit up a cigarette and said, "If you continue to smoke, I will take up smoking as well." I snatched the cigarette from her and promised her I would quit. That was the first time I tried to quit. It was also the most successful attempt because I stayed clean for a good 3 months.

The reason why I started smoking again was extremely stupid, but hey, I was a teenager with raging hormones! I used to work part-time everyday after school and there was this girl who was my age, did charity work in the same hospital, was filthy rich, and had taken up smoking very recently. Indeed, she was of the opinion that smoking is really cool. So when I got my first chance to be in a locked room with her, it was to smoke. She smoked Dunhills, so I had to get a Marlboro pack for me. There it was. I was a smoker again.

I didn't bother to be secretive about it. I made my peace with my mother, a caffeine addict, by telling her "I would quit smoking if you can stop being addicted to tea." She usually needs two huge mugs of tea every morning to get out of bed.

So its been 11 years since I've been a smoker. My lifestyle includes cigarettes in everything. And the biggest reason for me to stay a smoker: nicotine addiction. Most non-smokers don't understand nicotine addiction. Every human being has a certain level of nicotine in their blood - even people who don't smoke. When a person smokes, he or she actually increases the level of nicotine required in their blood. Now each time when the nicotine goes lower than that level he has become accustomed to, he craves cigarettes. Its what they call a physical [or biological] dependence [not just psychological].

And its been 7 years since I've been trying to quit. Most smokers plan to quit at one time or another, but they keep postponing. I've done that a lot, but I've also tried to set a Quit Day and quit smoking a number of times. Hardly any time did I go beyond 2 weeks without lighting up again.

The fact is, I'm HEAVILY addicted to nicotine. I can get rid of cigarettes and all psychological reasons for smoking [eg. talking over the phone and nothing to hold in my hand], but the moment I stop using Nicotine gum [Nicorette] or Nicotine lozenges [Nicotinell], I go back to smoking.

Despite all this, I'm trying to quit smoking again. And today is the Day 1 where I go cold turkey - cutting off cigarettes completely. I had three cigarettes the day before, in an attempt to cut down before the Quit Day. I don't have any reason why this attempt would be successful, especially because all my close friends here are smokers - 6 people : all smokers. The first week is the hardest, and then each day is hard - any setback could throw me back at smoking. And with the semester taking its toll with assignments, projects, group meetings for research papers etc., I really have to learn how to use my will power efficiently. But quitting smoking is something that needs to be done. And for now, I'm determined to make it happen.