What it is Like to Quit
So, I finally did it.
I quit.
No more talking about how I’m going to quit.
No more saying that today is the day that I quit.
Five days ago, I quit. Today, I realized that I had quit for good.
I am now part of the proud ranks of ex-smokers. I still have another week of hourly cravings to go through, and a few months of daily cravings ahead of me, but compared to the last five days, the suffering that I now face is like a warm summer breeze after a bitterly cold winter… For someone in Phoenix, that warm summer breeze is uncomfortable, but an escape is always nearby, and water is always at hand. It may be hotter than hell, but hey, it’s home.
So, if you’re reading this, you either fall under one of three categories: You’re a non-smoker who is at least curious about what smoking is all about, or you’re an ex-smoker who wants to know how my experiences are different from your own, or finally, you’re a smoker, and learning how to quit smoking is going to come in handy one day.
Well, I already explained my method before. I didn’t make any deals with myself or any promises. I didn’t use the gum, patch, lozenge, or any other nicotine product. I simply learned as much about smoking and quitting as I possibly could, set my jaw, and suffered. I also used the support of my family, co-workers, and friends, because I most certainly didn’t have enough willpower to stick it out on my own.
What follows is what I believe the average smoker will go through on a day-to-day basis.
Day 1:
After making a promise to yourself and your significant other the night before to quit smoking, you wake up to a fine, bright and beautiful morning. You yawn, stretch, and a minute later, you’re wondering what promise you made to yourself last night… After a few more puffs on your cigarette, it all floods back. Well, since you already smoked today, you’ll quit on another day…
Day 1, Take 2:
Last night, you made certain to hide all of your cigarettes. Perhaps you even threw them all away. You wake up to find that one of your pets has left your a very interesting surprise. Immediately, you find your cigarettes, or dig them out of the trash, or buy another pack… after all, today is a pretty stressful day…
Day 1, Take 3:
…
Day 1, Take 78:
For the last three days, you have been telling all of your friends, co-workers, and family that you are finally going to quit smoking. After they realize that you weren’t joking this time, and they feel ashamed for laughing in your face, they have all offered up their best advice… which you find odd coming from people who are still smoking. At least their intentions are pure.
You wake up this day much like any other… except today, you wake up knowing that you have planned for this moment. You want to reach for your cigarettes, but either there are none in the house, or if there are other smokers around, you’d feel awfully embarrassed asking them for one after the way you’ve been talking these last three days. Your first craving comes and goes as you get ready for the day.
Once you’re ready for the day, another craving hits… It lasts for quite a while, or so it seems. You get in your car, pass the convenience store that ruined quit attempts 12, 15, 16, 17, 32, 41, and 55, and get to your destination just as the craving seems to finish (though in reality, you had five different cravings throughout the trip). At this point, you’re feeling a bit… well… uncomfortable. Something just doesn’t feel right… you’re not quite certain what you should be doing, and you find making decisions to be more difficult. Your memory starts to slip away, and your arms start to tingle very slightly. Your chest tightens, and every once in a while, you feel a surge of fear.
You make it back home in a complete daze. The only thing that you can remember is that you are quitting smoking. The only reason why you remember that you’re quitting, is because that is all that you have been able to think of all day. Luckily, tomorrow is your day off… so you watch television… and grow impatient of it… and play some video games… and grow impatient of them… and sit at your computer staring at a single screen for fifteen minutes, just too impatient with everything else to actually do anything on the computer. Finally, you decide to go to bed, about an hour earlier than you usually do. Fortunately, you don’t have your expected bout of insomnia, even though you are so stressed that you would normally be awake for a week solid.
Day 2:
You wake up in a daze. You get ready in a daze. You do everything in a daze. You’re impatient at everything. You just want today to end.
All of your cravings are starting to blur together. Even if you concentrated, you wouldn’t be able to tell when one started and the other stopped. (Fortunately, they do have a short duration. They only feel like they’re lasting forever. Unfortunately, it’s how you feel that actually matters.)
About midway through the day, you feel extra weak… After eating lunch, you remember something about nicotine giving people the same symptoms as a mild case of diabetes… For the last few years, your body has been storing energy in the bloodstream because the nicotine has been blocking the insulin, which is required for actually transferring energy into our cells. Well, now that the nicotine isn’t working against us so much anymore, our insulin is working normally, so our muscles are getting more energy. Unfortunately, our fat cells are also getting a lot of energy as well, and storing it for a famine.
This re-enabling of the insulin has a real upside and a real downside. Probably the only good side effect of smoking is that it increases our endurance, but it costs us by taking away a lot of our ‘explosive’ strength. Smokers are slow but steady. Well, when we quit smoking, our bodies rather suddenly change over. We’re suddenly a lot more energetic, but we get tired very quickly. This is one reason why ex-smokers get fat.
Day 3:
You remembered to eat breakfast. In fact, you figured out that you can short circuit a nicotine craving by eating something. Chewing gum doesn’t seem to help… actually digesting something seems to be the only thing that works. Although, what works and what doesn’t work seems to be a bit… erratic. Sometimes, a big piece of chicken will do the trick, and sometimes it won’t. Sometimes, a cookie will help, and sometimes it won’t. Oranges work well pretty much all the time, but you’ve run out. Chocolate seemed to help a lot… but it suddenly stopped working.
Today, you’re also experiences one, long, continuous, super-strong craving. Well, technically, just several strong, short cravings… but it feels like it’s just one craving that is lasting the entire day.
The trick to getting through today is to never be alone. Also, eat food that is hard to digest. The reason why sometimes the chicken worked and sometimes it didn’t is because fat is hard to digest… and different pieces have different amounts of fat. Chocolate “helped” by giving you caffeine… but it suddenly stopped because, after 15 minutes when the caffeine is doing the most of its work, it is making your cravings even stronger. Also, the sugar in the chocolate is very very easy to digest, and it will make you fat anyways.
For those who know the South Beach Diet, this is the time to go on phase 1… all fiber, unsaturated fats, and acidic foods. Carbs are your enemy when it comes to quitting smoking. Also, eating saturated fats are just a bad idea any day… Eating fat will never make you fat, but saturated fat will still kill you, and probably a lot more quickly than smoking will. Eat often… eat in moderation… keep your energy levels high without over-eating.
Day 4:
Yep, still in a fog.
Yep, still craving.
Fortunately, today’s all-day craving isn’t quite as bad as yesterday’s all-day craving. It still really sucks, though.
Day 5:
Still in a fog.
Still craving.
Although… it isn’t one long, continuous craving today. There’s actually a couple of breaks between cravings.
And… did I just form a complete sentence?
Did I just make a decision?
Hey, the fog over my mind is lifting! I can think again!
That’s right… Day 5 is when you get over the hump. It may happen as soon as you wake up… or it may happen just before you go to sleep. In fact, it may not happen until day 7, so don’t pin all of your hopes and fears on it being day 5 that you’re over the hump.
The cravings are still there. They are just as real as they were on day 1 and day 3. They just aren’t coming quite as often, they aren’t lasting as long, and they’re a little easier to ignore. There are still several cravings during the day… at least two per hour… but it no longer feels like the day is filled with just one continuous craving.
Week 2: (Hypothetical for me from here on out… based on my father’s experiences, mainly)
Cravings are still coming a few times throughout the day… at least one per hour at the beginning of the week, and once every two hours at the end of the week… Will these cravings ever end?
Month 2:
Odd dream about smoking last night… I thought that I was sneaking a cigarette here and there, and that it was all alright… Still craving at least once per day.
Year 7:
There was that dream again. I had a craving in February, July, and August…
Year 41:
I actually didn’t have the dream this year, but I did still have one craving…
A Note About Cravings for Non-Smokers
Cravings are actually painful. It isn’t just a person thinking “Gee, I want to smoke…”
The closest and best analogy is of hunger and thirst. A craving is a hunger pain. The third day of not smoking is similiar in intensity to the thirst of a person who hasn’t had anything to drink in three days. On this day, if a cigarette is made available, it would take a tremendous amount of willpower to not smoke, just as it would take you a tremendous amount of willpower to not take a drink of water on the third day of dehydrating. Even if you knew the water was contaminated with lead… you would survive just one drink… it would take years of drinking the lead contaminated water to kill you.
For non-smokers: Do yourself a favor and never find out just how much cigarette cravings hurt. Smokers don’t smoke for the pleasure of it. We smoke to get rid of the suffering that smoking causes. There is no pleasure in smoking, unless feeling normal after feeling terrible can be considered pleasurable. It just isn’t worth it to start.
As for me. Well, if I ever smoked again, I’ll have to go through another 5 days to get to where I am now. Sure, I can survive just one more cigarette… but the most deadly cigarette is always the next one, because there is always another one after it.
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