I had my first cigarette when I was thirteen years old and it blew my head off. I was skipping school on a sunny afternoon with three of my friends. We climbed to the top of one of the grassy hills in my home town that overlooked what was my entire world. I was politely asked by one of them, “Would you like a cigarette” or a fag, or a ciggy or a tab. Whatever the terminology was, its not important. I, without hesitation said “Sure”. “Can you roll”… “No”. So he rolled me one, I sat down (lucky I did) and attempted my first drag. I failed. I sucked it into my mouth, then out of my mouth as quickly as possible.
It wasn’t the worst thing I had ever tasted, that categories gold silver and bronze is taken by sprouts, cottage cheese and my dads attempt at cooking a sweet and sour chicken some years prior. I didn’t cough (obviously) and I thought it was overall a pleasant experience.
However, it didn’t take my friends long to realise I was not smoking properly. According to them I wasn’t “Taking it back”. So, they taught me to breath in, then breath in again.
“Oh okay, no worries” I said impatiently, ready to get this whole situation out of the way and try not to look like a complete amateur. Then, like a molten river of fire coursing through my throat and air passages, “Cough, cough cough. Oh my God Cough, cough” my lungs were no longer the virgin flesh they were built to be.
I was disgusted, kind of. I remember my brain swirling around inside my skull. My lungs felt on fire and my eyes seemed to ache as I coughed. However, once the brain swirling had stopped, the coughing subsided and my eyes stopped doing whatever the hells they were doing. I felt good. Relaxed even. I was sat, on a field overlooking my town, with the sun shining, with my three good buddies having a new experience.
And since that day, my relationship with smoking has been a queer one. Like a poisonous relationship, smoking is something I desperately need to leave behind, but she’s an ever tempting lover, with her claws inside my lungs.
I have attempted to quit before, three or four times actually. Although, come to think of it I can’t remember if I really meant it, or if I was just kidding myself and others that I could stop or at least was trying too. Whatever the reasoning, after a busy day in the kitchen, or a stressful evening at university or while having a beer or two on my days off, I’d end up caving in without much resistance.
Strangely enough though, I never really considered myself a smoker. That was until I attempted to quit this time around (get to that later). I was never a twenty a day guy, not even ten a day. I’d be able to go days without a cigarette without any repercussions, at least that’s what I told myself.
One day, I don’t know why, probably because I was scared to die of cancer. I decided it was time to quit. So to do so, I chose to vape for a little bit, you know, to ‘wing myself off’, then I will quit vaping and shazam. I am a smoke free person, easy. How do you think that went? It didn’t. I mean I quit cigarettes. Easy. I picked up the vape and chugged on that for a couple weeks. When it came to putting that down, I realised my mistake.
I was addicted to vaping. I couldn’t put it down. I’d work a shift while vaping, I’d play Xbox while vaping, I’d get back from a run and vape. I’d take a vape with me hiking. Watching a movie, the vape was in my hand. This realisation came quickly. Thankfully, it didn’t take years of one or two cigs a day for ten plus years for me to realise I was slowly becoming addicted. I realised within two months. I was in hooked.
In my mind I had three courses of action. Either, continue vaping and realise this will be my new addiction. Take up smoking again and die of cancer. Or, go through months of discomfort and quit altogether.
To continue vaping for me wasn’t a option, I didn’t trust them. I felt they were more than likely worst for us than cigarettes. Of course I have no proof of that, and neither does the scientific community (which is suspicious in itself) Call me Alex Jones but there is something fishy about vapes. I understand already how addictive vapes are, and how convenient they are. I always preferred hand rolled cigarettes to pre rolled. To smoke, I’d have to make sure I have filters, papers, tobacco and a lighter. If I didn’t have any of those things I couldn’t smoke. I’d then have to roll it, go outside, be it raining or sunshine and then smoke it. Doesn’t sound all that much of an issue does it? Well at times it was an inconvenience and therefore I would reframe from smoking. All I had to do with a vape, was raise it to my lips and suck. I didn’t need anything else. I didn’t need to go outside half the time, I’d even be able to sneak a couple drags out of it while on shift. This I knew, had to go…
Option two was to pick up smoking again. Although I knew the risks of cancer, I felt safer smoking cigarettes than inhaling a vape. Don’t ask me why. I don’t understand it either. I guess its a ‘devil we know’ situation. However, cigarettes are expensive. I mean a pouch of 30gs of tobacco can be anywhere between £25-£30. That’s just shy of my weekly budget on food… It’s also a dent in my travel funds. Most importantly however, smoking was going to kill me, if not, it was going to cause health issues that could prevent me from living a healthy lifestyle. With the looming age of 30 coming closer and closer. I wasn’t willing to risk it anymore.
So that leads us to option three. Quitting.
As of this moment, I am fifteen days into quitting. On Monday, 29th of April. I decided enough was enough and I put my last cigarette out. Although as stated before I was planning on quitting leading up to this glorious day, the day I went enough is enough and decide to stop wasn’t planned. I just decided. I didn’t wait for a day, or for something to happen. I just woke up and said that was it, last night was my last cigarette.
And how is quitting going?
Great… and awfully at the same time. Since Monday the 29th of April I have had three drags out of a vape. That’s it. That was seven days ago today. I feel like I am making great progress. I feel each day is getting easier and I feel like I am going to succeed.
However, the first two weeks of this has been awful at times. I find myself pacing a lot more. Having urges to go to the shop and pick up a vape. Every time I see someone smoking I feel an urge to ask them for a smoke. I get itchy on my breaks at work and I feel this strange pressure in my head that keeps me up. It’s no so much a physical pressure, more a physiological one. The best way I can describe this feeling is;
It’s like you are at a party. The music is too loud, the company is not one you’d like to keep for too long and there is a strange smell in the air. You are hot, you dressed poorly for the occasion and you have a high level of anxiety. Then, someone comes up to you, someone you really do not like. They are loud, obnoxious and rude. They start talking about a subject you are rather bored of or are sensitive about. You feel a pressure behind the eyes, the music seems to get louder, the room seems to shrink and everyone is looking at you. You are sweating because its hot and your anxiety levels are sky rocketing. All you want to do it leave the party, but leaving the party means picking up a cigarette. Leaving the party could mean, death.
This, is how quitting an addiction feels to me. Its a bombardment of pressure, anxiety and sweat. This may not make sense to some of you, and some of you may have had different experience than I. But this is how I can describe it best.
How to quit smoking…
Although I am not even a month ‘clean’ from nicotine. I have zero professional qualification in phycology, or have any real understanding of addiction past reading articles on Dopamine and addiction. I think I have learnt something in the past fifteen days. Some of these ‘things’ may help you… so here are my top five lessons on quitting smoking from a person who hasn’t quit yet and has no qualifications in understanding anything about this complex issue…
- Don’t set a date to quit.
- Don’t beat the hell out of yourself if you slip up, but take responsibility when you do.
- Just one more lamp post.
- Find something to distract yourself.
- Remember your goal.
Don’t set a date to quit…
Each time I have attempted to ‘quit’ before, I set a date. “I’ll start on Monday”, “After my birthday”, “I’ll start at the beginning of the month”, or “When I have finished this pouch”. I don’t really want to ruffle any feathers while discussing quitting smoking, after all. I had mine ruffled and it didn’t do much good. However, I will say that these excuses are exactly that… excuses.
Monday will come around and you will either forget, and have to start the following week. Delaying your chance of quitting further, or that motivation that burns inside you will have subsided and you’ll just not bother quitting.
I remember when I was in my early twenties, a friends of mine was attempting to quit. Stated “After this pouch of tobacco I will quit”. We all celebrated this, wished him the best of luck and hoped he would release himself from his addiction, an addiction we also suffered from. Low and behold, a month or two later I ran into him with a cigarette in his mouth. I asked “No luck on quitting after that pouch then lad?”. He replied “Oh no, I’m doing great”. He must have seen the confusion in my face as he stood there lighting up. “Its the same pouch, I’ve just refilled it”.
This was funny. Yet, it was also kind of sad. He was so afraid of failing, so indoctrinated into his addiction that he tricked himself by refilling his tobacco pouch…
Quit when you wake up… You will know when its time. Do it early one random day. Don’t wait a second longer than you have to. Morbid as it sounds, my fate may already be sealed. Or maybe I quit just in time before any long lasting damage is done. Or maybe I am one of those lucky sods that could smoke my entire life with no illness… Why wait and find out.
Don’t beat the hell out of yourself if you slip up, but take responsibility when you do.
Truth is, I beat the hell out of myself whenever I fail. I feel awful. I feel like a failure, I feel like I am good for nothing and an undisciplined moron who can’t do anything I put my mind to.
When I was sat around the table playing some Dungeons and Dragons with my friends last week, I took three big drags from one of their vapes. I remember how disappointed I was in myself immediately after. I remember thinking, I have failed… again. I have gone seven days without and I have failed.
What would have happened a year or two before now. I’d have failed, gone down the shop and purchased a new pouch of cigarettes and continued to smoke. If I have failed now, what is the point on continuing. I’d have smoked more that following week and then come back to the stagnation of five or six a day.
This time however, my shame and self disappointment lasted maybe an hour. I was back on form. For the rest of the evening my brain kept prodding me in the direction of temptation. Yet, I told it no. I woke the next day, and I continued as if nothing happened yesterday. I am going to quit I told myself, last night was a blip that happened and I can’t take it back. I take responsibility of that fact, now lets get through another 24 hours.
Proof reading this following my completion, I notice my wording in places may seem extreme at times. However, in my opinion and in the opinion of the Addiction Centre, though smoking isn’t cocaine or heroin, it is one of the most addictive substances on the planet and should be treated as such.
So, in conclusion to beating the hell out of yourself if you slip up, but take responsibility when you do. Remember we are human, we are addicted to a substance and we are in control of our actions. We do not need to wallow in self pity when we slip up. It only brings us down, makes us feel useless and undisciplined. We do however, need to recognise that we slipped up, take full responsibility of that fact and move on. Don’t blame a hard days work on your slip up, take responsibility that you made a mistake and you will continue the progress you are on, starting the second that cigarette was put out.
There is no doubt in my mind that I will smoke again… this is a addiction and issue I will probably have most my life, but I WILL not be a smoker again…
Just one more lamp post.
Ironically, I am relatively fit and healthy. Though my age is starting to creep in… my knees are not as flexible as before. My hip hurts when I run and my weight has a mind of its own. When I first began running, I used to start and stop, start and stop. I’d train for months on end then give up and not go out for weeks and weeks. Each time I’d restart, I’d have to play catch up with myself.
So I came up with a mental technique that works for me when it comes to staying disciplined. I’d start my run, go on and on and on and not stop. If I stopped, I’d limit my breaks to a minute or until the end of the song I was listening too. Then, I would continue.
At some points I’d be so tired I feel like walking the rest. This is where one more lamp post comes into play.
Lets say I am five miles into a run and I feel like giving up. I’d set myself a new goal. Rather than having to push through another three miles and fail by giving up half way and then being angry with myself. I’d say “Okay, stop at the next lamp post”. I’d run to the next and then go “Well, that wasn’t so hard, lets get to the next one”. This would continue until I got home. Although I don’t have the exact statistics with me. I’d say eight out of ten times, I’d make it home without stopping.
Set small achievable goals that don’t sway you from completing the overall task.
Some days, its just about getting through that day, that hour or that moment. If you look at the bigger picture, you will be overcome with anxiety and daunted by the task. Our minds will see quitting forever as an unachievable task, and we will cave into the temptation of smoking again.
Find something to distract yourself.
It’s a simple, yet effective way to make the days shorter. There is no need for me the lecture this point. Yet, I will advise you find something healthy to pump your frustration into. Something worth the time and effort.
Remember your goal.
Don’t loose sight of why you are quitting. I personally write a reminder in my phone. I set an alarm for 3:30 (roughly when my break occurs at work) which has a note attached to it that reminds me that I have twenty more countries to visit before I die.
This motivates me. Adventure and the great outdoors makes life worth living for me… that along with a number of other hobbies, interests and philosophies.
The thought this could all be torn away from me for some cheap dopamine hits from a poisonous stick angers me. If I am going to die early, I want a bullet from a angered Columbian farmer or epic fall from the Himalayan mountains to kill me, not a disease caused by my own stupidity.
Good luck!
There is no need for me to continue this further than it need be, don’t waste another moment.
Uncharted Thoughts. 
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