Day four

[Flash Gordon]

Re: Day four

"Drinking", not "a drink".
Why a gallon?
You know why. Because you have to keep necking them to keep up the dutch courage jacket and hold off the gloom.
Make no mistake:
Everyone talks about hangovers in a physical sense: headaches, nausea etc.

No-one ever directly mentions the real issue: the misery, the blues, the anxiety....wishing the ground would open up and swallow you.
Where did all this come from?
Mars?
Or is it that this is what it means when people say "Alcohol is a depressant"?

Don't misunderstand me, I'm a sinner and I'm not lecturing. Just trying to understand myself.

[Danny]

Re: Day four

But drinking feels so damn good at the time.

When I feel down I'm often like "Going for a drink" and then I'm off to pub for a quiet gallon or so to cheer me up.

I just thought the negative, gloomy feelings were cos I had to stop (usually needed more money ) and go home

[Flash Gordon]

Re: Day four

All chemical, and any other type of dependence, is emotional.
That's the key. As they wear off, they leave a negative feeling which we adopt as our own. (our mistake.)
Drink a beer, it might be nice, but you will get the blues in an hour or two. Which is why people keep drinking: to hold off the depression.
Smoke a fag. It'll burn your throat, stink and make you nausious. Your heart beat increases and blood pressure rises. Then it settles down and you feel kind of flat. Abit lousey and crappy. So you smoke again to try and skip it, but you just start it again, and it goes on and on.....

[Flash Gordon]

Re: Day four

That's a clever question, my friend. Nicotine is a drug and a poison, and the body builds a tolerance to it - the body assuming, as it does, that it has no choice - as the day goes on.
Hence:"Headrush" in the morning(after a 6-8hr period of sleep), but not after that.
Also why you have to smoke more and more as the day goes on until it's never enough.
You end up coughing your lungs up, puffin away, just trying to feel normal.

[Danny]

Re: Day four

Surely a 'nonnie' doesn't feel stimulated every day? or have I interpreted that wrong?
Nonnies have never had that stimulation so if they feel lethargic it's just cos they 're tired wheres if I do it's cos I was a smoker -I will always be an ex-smoker and never a non-smoker

Was very tempted at weekend to invest in a pipe, some old gent wandered past me in a fragrant cloud and it was like "wow, should I ?"
Then I remembered a mate who took up the pipe in his early twenties to cut down on cigarette intake and ended up hooked solely on the pipe - his main problem after that was building up a relationship with the ladies, as he said to me "Its OK to light up a cig in bed once you spend your first night together but its a mood spoiler when the big clouds start instead, they take off prety sharpish"

[Flash Gordon]

Re: Day four

Lol, concidering tabbaco makes you woozy and lethargic,it's funny you feel tired!
Been a smoker for 16 years now, been trying to quit for a few. Have read Alan Carr and Nick Casey.
What we enjoy about smoking is nothing: meaning it's the absence of withdrawel, which is so subtle we adopt it as our own feeling, which it isn't.
Hence, our wrong beleif that nicotine relaxes, which, of course, it doesn't - being, actaully, a stimulant, and a "Noxious pharmacological experience".
What we like about smoking is feeling normal, ie, like a non-smoker feels all the time.

[stuckinthe80's]

Re: Day four

Keep going Danny. I stopped smoking 4 years ago after smoking 20 a day for about 22 years. It's really hard and I was feeling like s**t for a month or so after I stopped. I was wheezing more when I stopped than when I smoked! I never had a smokers cough till I stopped but all that went after a month or 2.
Keep it up. You'll thank yourself for it!

[chrisredditch]

Re: Day four

Keep going Danny - It DOES get easier!
I gave up in 2006 - Nearly done 3 years now - in money terms thats approx £5500 I've saved, let alone the health benefits!

(PS I have no idea where that £5500 has gone?? )

[Danny]

Re: Day four

Over a month now so maybe I've cracked it :- feel totally different, am bitter & twisted instead of happy-go-lucky so maybe thats my non nicotine personality coming out for first time since about 1972!

Chest and stomach pains that I've never had before, exhausted all the time and still can't eat - - so much healthier ha ha ha

[Danny]

Re: Day four

A bit easier now- 'continual inward screaming' at the unbearable horror has been reduced to 'constant whimpering with variable outbreaks of snivelling'

(also this maddening urge to smash my boss's face in but that's nothing new)

[Kiop]

Re: Day four

Still fighting the battle two days later - not gonna give in to some poxy weed; Now if it was giving up whisky I'd have surrendered at day two!

Nice to hear it. Is it getting any easier?

[Danny]

Re: Day four

Still fighting the battle two days later - not gonna give in to some poxy weed; Now if it was giving up whisky I'd have surrendered at day two!

[rossobantam]

Re: Day four

stick with it Danny..you KNOW it makes sense

I've never smoked, so don't know how hard it is to pack in I guess.....I thought food tasted better when you came off the fags?

Dave

[andyccm]

Re: Day four

Keep it up, it does get easier, I quit last year after about twelve years or so.

After a few failed attempts I decided to approach it all differently. I was having most trouble during the day at work and when certain situations would arise I would be tempted to go for a smoke, I simply substituted the going for a smoke with a different event. I think this is basically the Alan Carr method approach (not the comedian) which has worked for a lot of people I know.

I think though that it doesnt matter what you try, if you enjoy smoking and see not smoking as a punishment or deprivation then its unlikely you will succeed.

The other thing I have heard is that the key points for cravings etc happen at the 3s, eg 3 hours, 3 days, 3 weeks and 3 months, dont know why but there is supposed to be some psychological reason for it

[Danny]

Re: Day four

Think you're right about my heart not being in it - am sitting doing mental maths to calculate how long since I last had a smoke so it may be cracking point shortly