But as I sit here feeling like Nazi Facemelt from Raiders of the Lost Ark, I realize that there are some things that this first, torturous day of quitting can teach a man about life ...
#5. You Can't Expect People to Know What You're Going Through
Photos.comApplies To:
Being fired from your job. Coming out of the closet. Giving up anything that people consider trivial, like video games or pornography. Only being able to satisfy eight of the 11 women currently in your bed.
Photos.comHey, not everyone subscribes to the old-fashioned "seen and not heard" philosophy.
The Problem:
Ever heard someone in an office announce that they've quit smoking? Or maybe you've done it yourself. It's always met with some polite cheers and a "Good for you, buddy." From an outside, non-addicted eye, that seems like a perfectly normal response, right? It's deserving of praise, but what the hell else can a person say about it? The most they can do is give their version of "I agree with this decision" and get back to pretending they're not playing Minecraft on company time.
So within seconds of your announcement, the world goes back to normal, and you're left feeling a little shorted. This is a big fucking deal, guys. But what we tend to forget while we're waiting for someone to start our celebratory parade is that 72 percent of the U.S. doesn't smoke, and not all of the ones who do have tried to quit. To the rest, your decision to quit smoking is on par with their decision to give up chocolate -- they don't realize you feel like weasels have gnawed on your muscles and then shit in your brain.
Photos.com"Oh, don't even get me started! Cheesecake, now there's an addiction! Why ... why do you have that bat?"
Why Remembering is Vital:
When you make a change like this -- whether it's smoking, or trying to lose 50 pounds, or changing knife-fighting styles -- your whole world stops for a while. You want the rest of the world to stop with you. After all, when it's a bad habit you're trying to quit, you're used to people giving you shit. Every time we take a smoke break, it's "You know that stuff will kill you. When are you going to quit that nasty habit?" So when we finally do decide to take the plunge, we're expecting a little bit more than an acknowledging nod. It doesn't have to be a blowjob in the middle of a Broadway production. Just something that was at least on par with the enthusiasm they put into their annoying reminders about how unhealthy it is to inhale poison.
That's when you realize that, for the most part, you are on your own. That's hard to take when the nicotine starts to disappear from our systems and everything in the entire world becomes an excuse to smoke again ("I'm getting too angry. I need to smoke to take the edge off. It's for everyone's benefit, not just my own." Or, "Quick, give me a smoke! My nipples are throbbing!"). Anything to get that chemical back into the bloodstream.
Photos.com"Businessclown! Throw me your lighter!"
Photos.com"No, I tried that. I just wound up smoking them down to lowercase letters."
#4. Your Body Lies to You
Photos.comApplies To:
Hunger pangs less than an hour after you've eaten. Stress-related stomach cramps before a big job interview. When you've realized that when the time came, you didn't have to dodge bullets.
Photos.com"All I see is blonde, brunette, redh- ah, I'm just fuckin' with you. I see numbers. Nothing but goddamn numbers."
Monday night I stepped outside and smoked my last cigarette. Five minutes after I finished, I started feeling the effects of withdrawal: achy muscles, anxiety, shaky hands, panic. Five minutes. While the nicotine from my last smoke was still fresh in my system.
And it wasn't just an anxiety attack, it was the same exact physical withdrawal I had felt many times before. My brain knew I had made the decision to quit, and in response, it started hitting me with mock withdrawal symptoms before I was being physically deprived of the drug. When it comes to addiction, your brain can be kind of an asshole.
About 10 hours into my first smoke-free day, my legs and knees were killing me. It wasn't unexpected -- one of my biggest problems with past attempts was physical pain in my legs. But it wasn't until this time around that I realized this most likely had very little to do with nicotine withdrawal and everything to do with the fact that I sit in a computer chair for 16 hours a day.
Photos.com"I'm sorry, Mr. Cheese, but we just can't figure out what's causing your leg pain. Have you tried not being retarded?"
Why Remembering is Vital:
We tend to trust our body and the physical signals it sends. You need to constantly remind yourself that everything your body sends you, from hunger to exhaustion to anxiety, can turn out to be completely manufactured bullshit.
Remember walking on the train tracks when you were a kid? Playing that game to see who could walk on the rail the longest without falling off? With enough practice, you could even jump from rail to rail without touching the rocks in the middle, right? Now, imagine taking those same tracks and raising them up 1,000 feet into the air. Would you still be able to balance yourself and jump between them?
Everything about what you're physically doing is exactly the same. Your feet haven't changed size. The rails are the same distance apart as they were back on the ground. But because they're now up so high in the air, your mind (rightfully) adds in the element of danger, and suddenly, walking on those rails becomes impossible to anyone with a healthy, normal fear of heights. The activity hasn't changed -- your mind has.
Photos.comSorry, buddy, but you're going to have to just eat shit.
Photos.comAs well as the nicotine ... enhancer.
#3. Your Memory Will Change With Your Mood
Photos.comApplies To:
When you're halfway through a project and realize that it's too much of a pain in the ass to finish. Going back to a bad relationship. Breaking a diet. Continuing to watch Adam Sandler movies, hoping they'll be like those dirty CDs he put out 15 years ago.
GettySPOILER: They are not.
Let me tell you about something that actually happened to me 10 or so years ago. I was making an attempt to quit drinking because of all the reasons that make sense. Mostly the fact that it was killing me. I told my friends that I had finally had enough, and that this was it. I spread the word like I had just discovered the Lord.
Two weeks later, I got a big tax check, and I immediately bought a case of beer. When my best friend found out, he asked me why I went back to drinking. I told him, "Well, I can afford it now. The problem before was that we never had the money for beer, so every time I bought some, I was putting us further and further into the hole, financially." I remember being taken by total surprise when he asked, "Wait, when the hell did it become about money? That wasn't even an issue when you first told me you were quitting. So when did it go from not being an issue at all to being the sole reason that you quit?"
Photos.comThe second I sold my mother's kidneys for this fix.
As you got lonelier and hornier, your reasons for making that life change started to blur and fade.
Why Remembering is Vital:
This one's pretty obvious, right? I mean, do I really have to spell this one out?
Photos.com*Sigh*
Remembering exactly why you quit is so important that most help programs tell you to keep a card with the reason written on it and carry that shit at all times. That way, you can't con your way out of your progress. When you start to have cravings, just pull that fucker out and read it. If it's fresh in your mind, it's that much harder to modify when your brain starts to freak out.
