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I have now not smoked for 50 days and I’m becoming less and less convinced that this is necessarily a good thing. Here is a quick list of the main effects to date:
- I no longer experience the considerable pleasure that I derive from smoking. Non-smokers find this hard to understand but a cigarette after a meal, accompanying a drink or just as an enjoyment when you are sitting contemplativly alone is a real and genuine pleasure.
- In 50 days I have added about 12 pounds/5.5 kilos in weight. That’s not through eating the wrong stuff. It’s through being hungry more often.
- This is a weird one. I am unable to enjoy reading. This is from several books a week to none. Zero. Unread book pile getting bigger and bigger as I am having no trouble choosing and buying them. Just can’t settle to read and it’s driving me crazy.
- Actually, I am having problems writing too. A particular enjoyment is to construct a draft piece with a cup of tea and a fag and edit until happy or until the cigarette is smoked or the tea drunk. Take away one of the items (and I think it would be the same if I lost the tea!) and some of the fun has gone.
- I have started to watch more TV. Actually – as I only watched NFL, News/Weather, The West Wing and the odd film here and there, it doesn’t take much to watch ‘more’. As a smoker I did not smoke in the house – that’s what I built the conservatory for – but remove the cigarette and I am spending more time in the house and turning on TV as I can’t settle down with a good book. And this bit I really dislike.
This all adds up to not being that happy. I wouldn’t mind so much if I could say that I had stopped coughing in the mornings and was finding breathing easier. But I never have coughed in the mornings or had any problem with my breathing so that’s a non-starter.
I don’t see this lasting.
I too have trouble concentrating for long periods when I’m not smoking. Have you tried ritalin?
That sounds a bit desperate. Either that or you are joking and I’m not sure
Definitely prefer the smoking option….
The “enjoyment” is a chemical reaction. Your body is adicted to nicotine and when you satisfy that addiction, the nicotine is fooling your brain into thinking it’s enjoyable with chemicals. In reality, your body is actually working to try and fight the effects of the poison you’re feeding your body. Cigarette smoke contains not only nicotine (more adictive than heroin) but formadehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
I watched my grandad contract prostrate cancer (which had nothing to do with smoking) which then spread to his badly diseased lungs (caused through smoking). He went from being a fairly active, outgoing man to a bag of skin and bones than could hardly walk in the space of a couple of years. If he hadn’t smoked for 40-odd years he might have stood a chance. As it was, he had emphasema, asthma and bronchitis – all caused through smoking – and his body didn’t stand a chance of fighting the cancer.
I guess you have family – do they want to watch you smoke your life away for the sake of kicking a drug addiction? It’s been about 10 years since my grandad died and I still haven’t got over it. It’s a waste of a life.
wonkotsane: I very nearly vetoed this comment but I don’t really want to do that if I can help it. But in my experience this is a common reaction from either non or reformed smokers. Which is not to say it isn’t true and also does not mean I am in denial.
Fact is I have known people with these sort of conditions that were not smokers. Plus I have known smokers who just died of old age. Four years ago my brother had prostate cancer which lead to kidney and lung and death and he was a heavy smoker. Last year I had prostate cancer but am now fine. In other words the dice have many sides.
And at the end of the day are not all pleasures just chemical reactions?