smoke free
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- kelpie0
ok so I'm a week in and its been really easy for the most part.
One significant situation where its been fucking super hard and getting harder by the day is in work. I've never been a non smoker and done this and its completely changed the dynamic of how I work. To explain, for a start this stuff does not come easy to me; every job I do is a full on struggle, I get 'blank page syndrome' with practically every job (and more often the longer I do this) and its always a bit of a stressful race against the clock just trying to get something down onto the page that I can start working on to get something out. I've always used those 5 minute ciggie breaks to help clear my head and get a perspective on something so that when I go back in I've a better idea of what I'm going to do. especially useful for the frequent times I become completely stuck on a project and have absolutely no clue hat to do next. Now though, I don't have that part of my work routine there any more and I am mired in my current pitch job, which I have done nothing at all on in 2 days and am now about 5 minutes away from late on and I can't find a way of replacing that and reseting my head to try to work something out. I've tried getting up and going outside for a walk, I've tried chewing gum etc etc.
I wouldn't give a fuck cos I'm loving life as a non smoker already but married to having serious doubts and crisis of confidence about my work anyway this is making things doubly hard.
arg. rant over.
- basically I have 100% total mental block and would really really like to scrounge a ciggie off my pal here.kelpie
- skt0
go for a pint instead.
- kelpie0
much as I would like to go for a pint at half eleven on a deadline, unfortunately its not do able. Damn.
I'm actually seriously losing it here, I'm surprising myself even
- Khurram0
dude!! Hang the fuck in there!!
Your rationalising why you "need" a cigarette. That stick is an evil bastard. It's making you think "well, without the cigarette I can't work, because those 5 minute breaks are ESSENTIAL for me to function".
You think your being all logical abaaat it, but the thoughts are comin in on purely an EMOTIONAL level.
Keep bloggin this here man. Aim for 30 days. Week 4 we'll be done.
Maybe go have a wank in the men's toilets?
- VectorMasked0
it's 3 am and can't fall asleep.
Just had a smoke (marlboro light 100's) and feel revitalized
:o)
- but don't give up dude.
drink 3 gallons of water a day. it helps.VectorMasked
- but don't give up dude.
- Jordy0
I used to smoke a pack of Marlboro Reds a day. It's been three months now since I quit, from one to day to the other .. no pills, patches or any other kind of that shit.
Discipline.
- skt0
ok, not a pint, but maybe a cup of tea, outside of the office somewhere. you just need to get away from the screen.
- kelpie0
aye, good for yous. outside work = easy as fuck, loving it, walked over 60 miles in the last week and feel a million dollars. inside work = going spare here. Kuz, it most likely is rationalising things, but its not really helping having that knowledge; I will not smoke any cigarettes today but I'll also get in a tonne of trouble here and miss my deadline spectacularly. I'm fucking really worried all in. Think I'm terminally burned out, its just making the quitting thing slightly harder.
- SkyPoo0
The first thing your mind does when you try to kill its dependency on cigarettes is to start throwing loads and loads of 'reasons why' your day-to-day existence absolutely depends on maintaining the inflow of toxic chemicals and nicotine into your bloodstream.
Your cigarette breaks are not the things that solve the blank page syndrome... allowing yourself that period of time to think clearly does. Right now your in a sort of early stage panic mode - your body is realising its not getting the vital poison it needs so its trying desperately to alert you to the problem. Much the same is it does when your blood sugar is low, or when you need carbs etc.
Smoking cigarettes doesn't solve your problem. Do something else distracting instead. Go and walk to the shop and buy a Mars Bar, stand outside and eat it, then go back to your desk. This is good in three ways:
1. You put something into your body that makes a chemical difference
2. You emulate the behaviour of a fag break rather than observing a hole in your sechudle where a cigarette would have been
3. You help yourself to put on weight... part of your plan.oh, and
4.you get to practice going into a shop that sells smoking stuff without buying anything smoking related.
- Khurram0
well then... will ONE cigarette be so bad? ;-)
if you have 1, then sit back down to work and realise that it's made no difference - might be better for your mental conditioning in the long-term.
Just a thought, not sure how sound ^ that advice is.
x
(i heard someone say that a ship is off course 80% of the time, and that the entire navigational process is making tiny tiny adjustments to get it back on track until the destination, na'm sayin'?)
- I'm going to resist the ciggie, think I agree with the last point mate, takelpie
- That's really truly terrible advice, lol. Its a sequential habit, so 'just one' is actually the vital bridge the habit needs to survive.SkyPoo
- ha yeah, i know. It's not for everyone. I know how i quit, it was pretty gradual. That's why i said it.Khurram
- in fact, i never defined myself as "i've quit smoking" until i realised i had. Different strokes...Khurram
- SkyPoo0
"Think I'm terminally burned out,"
Mate, its apparent to me that most of us are feeling terminally worn out. That's not you, nor is it smoking related, it's the world we live in. There's a nagging sense of redundancy tugging at our sleeves.
- mikotondria30
Keep going, Kelpie - its all normal what you're going through - it does fuck with your mind for a little while and cause totally irrational thoughts like ' I can't do design if I haven't breathed in partially burned toxic plant fumes', but it'll pass, those thoughts will go..
Surprise surprise, non-smokers have those blank pages too, those blocks you just need to learn to do something else than smoke, that's too easy, the hardest bit about not smoking is having to fill in the parts of your routine when you normally would have lit up and had 'a little time off', but those pangs for the old 'routine' DO pass, and you'll realise that the old way was weak and foolish. It wasn't 'time off', it was time to get a fix to stop your craving for nicotine, plain and simple, what was the addiction is that it had got under your conscious radar and you rationalised it as something else.
Now you're stepping out from under that shadow and theres a gap where you used to be smoking, but that need has gone, because it wasn't real, the need to you have is to take a little break from your work.
Im only a few weeks ahead of you on being a non-smoking, pious twat, and I'll liken the first few weeks to like being on a kids roundabout at the playground, just drifting round slowly, round and round, then - when you stop smoking, you get off the roundabout and it feels like you're still going round, and forget how to walk in a straight line, but your realise that you were actually on a ride the whole time, and that standing on the ground is the normal way to be, even though IT feels wobbly and unexpected. It's a big step, stopping smoking - I was a woose for years and didnt even try because I didn't think I could do it, but I have and so can you, please post back here and let us know how you get on and what you did instead of smoking. All the best- thank you! I didn't realise you were only a few weeks ahead. you make perfect sense here, cheerskelpie
- moth0
Yum.
- Why do you smoke italian Marlboro?Sequencer
- 'cause he's obviously cheap and get his fags off a 'guy down the pub'Jnr_Madison
- mikotondria30
Smoking seems enhanced when you drink because the alcohol lifts the nicotine off their receptors so you get an instant withdrawl, which gives you a steeper rush when you do take nicotine in again, it's a daft game, really.
If you don't smoke, then the beer tastes even better and you don't have to stand outside under a little bus shelter with your 'comrades'.Pft.
- moth0
Rain or shine - I see more people outside pubs and bars than in them these days.
- jaylarson0
quit 10.75 years ago
- at least your not counting to the nearest quarter.Jnr_Madison
- flavorful0
Props kelpie.
I used to smoke, but basically the same reasons. To pass time, or as an excuse to get up from my desk at work - and just going outside to do nothing seemed like a waste of time. Or that I'd just look like a goon, heh.
You'll probably never get the taste back, but that's not because of the nicotine - it's because alcohol has had its way with your taste buds. But your sense of smell gets better.
Plus with most pubs banning smoking, it just makes sense.