I’ve decided to try to quit smoking. Again. I have been smoking for about 4 years now. I normally smoke about 2 packs a week. When I’m hanging out with friends, drinking or extremely stressed or bored, I can smoke up to a pack a day. I estimate that I have smoked about 400-500 packs by now, which amounts to about 10,000 cigarettes. I think that’s about enough.<\/p>\n
I have attempted to quit smoking on several occasions before. Obviously, every single one of those attempts failed- but it is perhaps worth noting that each consecutive attempt was more successful than its predecessor. The first serious attempt I made lasted 3 days, the second lasted 5, and the third lasted slightly over a week.<\/p>\n
This time I think I know what I’m doing. I think I have a good enough reason, and I think I have enough experience to know what to expect and how to manage it effectively. I have skills, incentives and a plan.<\/p>\n
It has been a full day since my last cigarette. I smoked 4 cigarettes yesterday, and about 10 the day before.<\/p>\n
In the spirit of keeping track of things<\/a>, I’ve decided to keep track of my smoking cessation for 30 days.<\/p>\n Today was Day 1.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>Woke up in the morning feeling psychologically strong. Do not have any cigarettes or tobacco with me. Feeling excited, ambitious, powerful. Did not feel any need to smoke whatsoever.<\/p>\n Began to feel giddy after a while, as expected and has always happened before. Brain not used to having so much oxygen. My skin feels extra sensitive. My fingertips have a tinge of pins-and-needles. My nervous system feels “overloaded”, I find myself fidgeting a lot. I bought peanuts and Mentos in anticipation of cravings. I finished the peanuts at breakfast and rationed out the tube of Mentos to last me the entire day.<\/p>\n Drank lots and lots of water, several 500ml bottles worth. Mouth feels like its moulting, shedding dead\/dying tissue, being reborn. It’s a rather awkward, icky aftertaste\/sensation. Skin still sensitive. Experience a couple of erections at random, like an adolescent all over again. (I don’t know if I’m imagining it, if it’s because of improved circulation, sensitive nerves or a bit of both- but they also seem substantially harder.) Slept a lot. Air “tastes” really fresh in the lungs. Experience heart palpitations<\/a> and a bit of tightness in the chest on a couple of occasions, as expected. I’ve also been feeling a little bit nauseous, also expected. Also, fatigue.<\/p>\n Generally giddy. Head feels a bit heavy. Feels really good to breathe in deep. Body feels lighter. Mind is still active. The will is still strong. If you offered me a cigarette now I would turn it down without any doubt, regret or temptation. Going strong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve decided to try to quit smoking. Again. I have been smoking for about 4 years now. I normally smoke about 2 packs a week. When I’m hanging out with friends, drinking or extremely stressed or bored, I can smoke up to a pack a day. I estimate that I… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,211,441,443,501],"class_list":["post-1825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-cigarette","tag-health","tag-smoking","tag-smoking-cessation","tag-tobacco"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5gxNz-tr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1825"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9341,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1825\/revisions\/9341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}