.Bard

So, this morning I quit smoking.

I decided a few weeks back that I'm starting to look a little too much like the Hawaiian Jabba the Hutt, and that my mom, who has lost over 30 pounds in the last six months or some silly shit like that, is making us all look bad. So, once we get stateside, I have to do the gym thing. It's against everything I believe in, but I don't think I have a choice. I don't think I'm gonna be as lucky as my mom and stay healthy 'til I'm 60 and then start going to the gym. She's a freak. I can't count on that.

So, other than the fact that I find the entire gym culture disgusting and even the mere mention of endorphins is enough to send me into a rant (as a friend on Facebook found out recently -- sorry Jill!) I plan to drop in, and tune out that quiet voice that tells me that exercise for the sake of exercise is pure wank, and try and lengthen my stay here (as in the planet) by a few years.

I'm not as interested in losing weight as I am in being more fit, and hopefully able to get out of the car without puffing and panting. Y'know?

So, the first step to doing all of this has to be quitting smoking. Funnily enough, I'm a lot more afraid of quitting smoking than I am of exercise.  My theory is that I've exercised before, when I've had to, albeit when I was a great deal younger (hello JROTC!). But, I've never really had to quit smoking. I quit when I was 18 or something, but I think I smoked a total of 10 cigarettes a week or so back then. Not what you'd call a hardcore habit (just enough to make me feel cool and dangerous whilst walking down California Ave. in Wahiawa on the way home from school). This time, however, is different, as I found out today, but we'll come back to that. 

This time, I've had a serious, 20-smoke-a-day habit for eleven years. The first eight or nine years, in fact, we (Kerri and I) even smoked in the house. We just smoked constantly. We've both always enjoyed smoking, but always had to hide or curb our habit based on who we were with. Once we got together, we just pulled out all the stops. When we started working on the house a few years ago, we both decided it was silly and impractical to fix the house up, then continue smoking inside, so we moved the habit outside, which made us both feel like we'd done something positive, even if we were still smoking just as much. At least we weren't stinking the house up or pushing second-hand smoke on the kids or any guests.

So, that sort of brings us up to today. Well, actually yesterday. As anyone who knows me even a little bit will know, my iPhone has completely taken over my life. I read books on it, play games on it, chat on it, and even occasionally use it to make phone calls. So, obviously, when I started thinking seriously about giving up the world's nastiest habit, I wound up having a look on the App Store for an app for, well, that. The top hit for the word smoking turned out to be a hypnotherapy app , which probably would have sounded stupid to me, except I happen to know that my 40-a-day-Marlboro-light-smoking father quit his habit of 30-odd years after only an hour of mass hypnosis some twelve or thirteen years ago. So, funnily enough, this app was exactly what I was hoping for. A simple method, based on hypnosis, that would quickly help me kick.

I downloaded it last night, and found that I really needed more peace than one is afforded sleeping in a double bed with Kerri and JackTheWonderKitty. So, I had a smoke last night and went to bed. This morning, after seeing Kerri off to work, and kicking the cat out of the house for the morning, and having one last cigarette, I followed the instructions in the application. I showered, and cleaned teeth, etc to completely get rid of the smoke smell. I had to put my jeans in the wash (NOOO!) and put out clean ones to put on after. I was ready. I had had my last cigarette, and was ready to be hypno-thera-pized, dammit.

I laid back, relaxed, and listened intently to the sound of Max's voice, just as I had been told in the introductory listening session. Before long, I really was feeling heavy, sleepy, etc just as he said I should, but I sensed I wasn't really UNDER like I needed to be. I persevered, however, through the entire 40-odd minute program, after which I did feel fairly refreshed, but never did feel like I was "under" or like I had missed time, the way hypnotists victims (wrong word?) always seem to on TV. The whole way through, I felt like I was trying to talk myself into everything he was saying, and in some cases failing miserably. It didn't feel like my conscious mind had in any way stepped out of the way to allow Max access to my soft, chewy, sub-conscious center. At any rate, I felt that since I had put in the time listening to the program that I had better at least try to manage as long as I could. I even hoped that in spite of my lack of faith, it might even work anyway. 

Clearly, this was not the case.

After an hour, and a few glasses of fizzy mineral water, and some breathing exercises (both of which Max assured me would help!) I was having some pretty nasty cravings. After a couple of hours of sitting around the house, and not being able to concentrate on anything, I finally decided that I should probably eat, as my food cravings were getting nearly as severe as my smoke cravings. I decided to spoil myself by going out for my favorite portuguese chicken burger which I hoped might make me feel better in general.

Clearly, this was also not the case.

After lunch, which was lovely, the only thing that happened was that the cigarette cravings mixed with my habit of always smoking after eating to turn into some gigantic muscle-memory-cum-chemical-addiction-cum-oral-fixation nightmare. Bad juju. Bad juju indeed. It was about this time that I really, really began to despair as my mind really started to turn on me. This was when I discovered how bad my habit actually was (is). I don't think I appreciated what smokers go through when they quit until today. I have always had lots of fun at the expense of every "quitter" I've ever met, and I know now that I'm paying for my sins. Threefold, at the very least. I've never felt as weak, or as foolish as I have today, trying to put these fucking things down. I'm hoping the anger that I'm experiencing will help harden my resolve. I'm also hoping that a second session with the hypnotherapy app in a few days (it's only recommended to play the full program once a week) will help me make it a little further than I did today.

Oh, how far did I get, you ask? The numbers look like this (thanks, Bridget Jones):

Number of cigarettes smoked in the past 24 hours: 3

Longest break between cigarettes in the last 24 hours: 9

Previous record before today: Uhh.. How long does it take to scarf an entire large Dominoes double-mushroom pizza?

Number of balls left after using this bullshit bridget jones format: 1.2, possibly less.

So, yeah. I made it 9 hours without breaking down right before we went out to dinner (coincidentally, right after Kerri had her first listen of Mr. Kirsten's stop smoking program). How was it, you may be asking? Well, bruddah.. let me tell you.. it was FUCKING NASTY. I've never enjoyed a cigarette less than I did that one. Even my very first cigarette, which I had when I was 13, I enjoyed. This thing tonight tasted like failure. Failure and ass. Seriously. Cigarettes taste fucking gross. You're probably not overly surprised by this, but I really, really was. I've never had that problem before. I fucking like cigarettes, I like them a  LOT. This was something strange. I can't explain it, except possibly to suggest that maybe the hypnosis had more of an effect that I thought it did. All I can tell you, besides the fact that I've finally met a cigarette I didn't like, is that I haven't had a single craving since then. It's been amazing. This is what I was hoping it would feel like after listening to the program in the first place. I don't know how long this buzz, or lack thereof, is going to last, but I plan to enjoy it, and pick myself up and try again when/if I crash again.

i can't say enough how amazing so many of my friends have been today. I'm not naming anyone, lest I leave someone out and feel like a total heel, but you all know who you are I hope. You've all been amazing today. I'm pleased to say that after a day of hell, I'm still committed to this process, which means you'll all have me around to annoy and be annoyed by (hey Lehnanne ) for far longer than you would have, which has to be a good thing. Some of you (I'm looking at you, Chrissy) have wanted me to quit for so long that this is probably as satisfying for you as it is for me, which is groovy. I don't have a problem with doing this for other people. Other people love me. I can't stop them, so I may as well try and facilitate their affection by sticking around for a while ;).

So, keep those calls and letters coming in. Tomorrow I start my second day of life as a non-smoker (which I still consider myself to be, even though I had a lapse tonight, thanks Kerri ). It's turning out to be rather an adventure, and I do hope you'll all be around to see how it turns out.