Week 24, Day 6 (The Bad Patch)

Here's a tip, friends and lovers. If you're quitting the dreaded fags and you're only smoking a few a day, do NOT use nicotine patches to help you finish off. The lowest strength patch that was available to pregnant women was 20-strength, and when you're only having 3-5 ciggies a day.... Well, you do the maths.

Days 1 & 2 I was fine and dandy (mind you, I was barely operational due to the flu and spent probably 75% of the time sleeping). Day 3 you've already read about. Day 4 was worse. Day 5 and I was in full addict withdrawal mode with the shakes, foul mood (even the dog wouldn't come near me for a pat), and ready to rip anyone's head off and beat them around the neck with the bloody stump.

Whooo-ahhh!

Imagine the fun Wayne had, being the only victim for miles and whatever sympathy or understanding he offered getting hurled back at him in frustration with an extra helping of hot tongue & cold shoulder. From where I was standing, I had major cabin fever going due to over a week with constant company with no time to myself at all. The inner hermit was in a fine rage, and fueled by the crazy addict, and further inflamed by frustration at being sick and getting behind on my work.

Yeah.. you're feeling REALLY sorry for Wayne about now, and I don't blame you :-) But imagine how much fun it was for the baby! Suddenly he's got more than quadruple the amount of nicotine in the bloodstream, PLUS his mother is a bundle of upsets & stresses, AND she's already quite sick and making the whole experience not a lot of fun. Poor little bugger!

Actually it wasn't that bad overall, it just came to a head on Monday night when the craving got the best of me and I told him that if he didn't hand over a ciggie right then, I was getting in the car and driving the 40k's to the nearest open shop. (Then I spoilt the effect by not being able to find my wallet, which was hiding in plain sight on the desk. Bummer)

The upshot was we decided the patches were a bad bad bad thing, and off came the one on my arm. Within half an hour I was a lot calmer and more human (but to be fair, the half-puff I had on a very cherished ciggie out on the front steps might have helped that a lot).

It tasted disgusting, and smelt even worse, but when the dopamine flooded through me and killed the nasty craving nothing else mattered. There was nothing for it but to laugh at myself and how sad it was to see a human being reduced to a quivering addict.

It made me even more determined to quit, but in a more sensible way.

We've decided that over the next few days I go back to having no more than 3 ciggies a day, in order to get control of the situation and to bring my levels down to something much safer. Then on the weekend (with no client visits scheduled, and little chance of murdering anyone if the going gets rough), we'll do the cold turkey thing again, this time properly. By Monday I should have it kicked, and be back in control of my reactions.

Wayne survived the showdown at the Not-So-OK Corral, and my sense of humour is fully restored. The other benefit (which came as a complete shock) was the big coughing fit that hit me after that first half-fag, which broke up the crap that had been sitting like wet cement on my chest for three days, firmly resisting all efforts to break it loose. That night I had the best night's sleep I'd had in over a week.