Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The non-smoking is going reasonably well. I am no longer counting how many hours it has been; the integers have stretched into days. This is positive. It has been 10 days today. This is by far the furthest I have ever gotten to without randomly bursting into tears or wanting to cause harm to others with a strategically placed fork, before relapsing back into the comforting familiarity of a packet of Malboro Lights each day. There was, however, a semi-planned relapse on the weekend when the issue of getting on the sauce was raised by my housemates on Saturday. I wanted to go out with them, and I wanted to drink, but I was reasonably sure that once I had consumed a few champies that I would probably want to smoke. The semi-plan was that I would not panic if I did smoke. And I did smoke a couple during the night. Sunday I was back off them, and have been back off them until now.
Thus far, the positives of the past ten days have been -
- I am taking far, far less time to do things. I never realised how little time tasks potentially could take if you don't stop for a fag a couple of times along the way. This applies mainly to getting ready for work in the morning, and getting ready to go out to the pub.
- I can smell EVERYTHING! This could potentially go in the list of negatives also.
- My sense of taste has increased too, but not dramatically. The flavour of foods I thought I knew are increasingly revealing new depths.
- I am working out like a demon. I need something to do to distract myself when I would usually smoke. This has involved walking 3kms at lunchtime and visits to the gym almost every night after work. I have re-discovered liking exercise! Definitely aided by;
- Being able to breathe properly. I never really thought that my lung capacity had been affected too badly by smoking and that the fact that I got puffed so easily was because I carry too much weight and just wasn't consistent enough with exercise to have any CV fitness. Since being back at the gym in the last week and a half and not fagging on like I used to, I have had an amazing increase in my lung capacity and stamina. Plus, in the midst of my time-wasting at work/internet research, I discovered some breathing exercises that supposedly help with cravings. It is truly lovely to be able to take what feel like enormously deep breaths. This will apparently continue to improve for a while yet too.
Not so grate, akshully;
- Frequently, I am at a loss as to what to do with myself. This is admittedly quite a general statement, but to clarify, I am learning how to deal with situations where I would have lit up automatically, now without smoking. After getting off the phone to a shitty client, for example, you would inevitably find me out the back of the office sucking furiously on a cigarette. Or when having a coffee, it goes hand in hand with having a smoke for me. So I have had to give up coffee. Which I guess is sort of a good thing. I have been drinking a lot of water, which apparently helps as well, but I am sure that quite shortly someone at work will complain about how many trips to the toilet I make.
- Back to smelling everything….this includes when my smoking colleagues come back in the office from their break and I can almost pinpoint their preferred brand from the smell. At the risk of sounding completely obvious, it smells really bad. Like, really bad. Who knew.
- I have not saved any coin whatsoever. Because I am not spending the money I usually would on cigarettes this apparently gives me the right to BUY THE WORLD. On the upside, I purchased the most beautiful red winter coat yesterday and I just want to look at it and touch it and hold it forever.
- I am getting a little self-righteous about my progress and my new commitment to (relatively) clean living. Which will inevitably set me up for a fall in some way.
- I have been coughing up the most vile shit you can imagine ever coming from your own body. Not to gross you out, but it's brown. And I mean brown. For goodness sake.
# posted by Kymmy : 2:31 pm
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