Smoking!

After I wrote my last post yesterday and stubbed out my cigarette in my overfull ashtray. I decided that I was probably killing myself with my smoking and that I should quit. I sat down on the sofa and analyzed my feelings about that for a bit and looked at the overfull ashtray that was sitting on the coffee table there and I realized what a very disgusting and dangerous addiction smoking really was. I had only an inkling of an idea what it was doing to me physically, and I suspected that it was doing a lot to me emotionally and not necessarily in the good way that I always associated with it. I thought about what all those chemicals were doing to my body and my brain and I pictured them as poisons invading me and causing great damage, and maybe even death in the end, and I knew I didn't consciously want be continue inhaling the smoke of cigarettes anymore.

I started off by going around the apartment and emptying every ashtray that I could find and then putting them all in a plastic bag and tying it closed and putting it on the shelf in the kitchen closet. All except one little mini ashtray that I kept out for emergencies. I was being realistic and aware of my own capacities. I sat down on the sofa and would normally have lit a cigarette, but now didn't, of course, and I thought about what I would do next. I decided to just enjoy a little bit of time not smoking at all and see what that was like.

After I had done that for a while, I went to the dining table and cleaned up the tobacco crumbs and put away the pack of tobacco and the filter tubes and the little machine to make the cigarettes with. There were some cigarettes already made left, but I decided not to worry about them and put them away in the cabinet along with the rest of the stuff. Then I sat down on the sofa again and enjoyed another non-smoking session. I noticed that not smoking wasn't nearly as horrible as I thought it was going to be. As a matter of fact, it was almost pleasurable.

I got up and opened the top windows in every room in the apartment so that the nasty smelling air would get a chance to escape. I turned the thermostat down low so the heater would not go on. Then I took the dog for a walk and breathed in the cold evening air very deeply, as if I was smoking it. After I came back, I had my dinner and it was after that, that I felt like smoking a cigarette. I put it off for a while, but finally lit one, but it didn't taste as good as I had hoped it would and made me cough something awful. I didn't smoke all of it, but stubbed it out before I was done with it and that was it for me for that night. I didn't smoke again and went to bed on time and didn't even have my before I go to sleep, last one of the night, cigarette.

I got up very early in the middle of the night, because I was having night sweats something awful, even though the windows were still open, and turned on the computer and went and made myself a cup of coffee. More out of habit than anything else, I decided to have a cigarette and it made me cough again something awful. One hour later, I had another one, but then visited a website about quitting smoking and the ingredients in cigarette smoke and I did some very interesting reading that was very helpful and educational. It also gave all sorts of good tips on how to quit and stay quit and what the warning signals are for when you want to light up. I haven't had a cigarette now in quite awhile and every time I think I want one. I do breathing exercises that help a lot. Normally between now and yesterday I would have smoked up to 20 cigarettes already, so 3 is not bad at all.

I have somehow convinced myself that cigarette smoking is detrimental to my mental health, besides being bad for me physically. There is an enormous amount of chemicals in cigarettes, and more so in the smoke we inhale, and I don't know what that does to my mind. It is a poison, that's for sure. A cigarette is a poisonous substance and you take a risk with every one you smoke. You actually inhale this poisonous stuff into your lungs and it takes only 7-10 seconds to get to your brain. What does it do there, besides pretending that it makes me feel better? It makes me feel different, but does it really make me feel better? It's my premise that it actually makes me feel worse than I do, but that I have to kick the nicotine addiction, which I will.

So that was my story about the cigarettes.

The story about Jesker is that he is walking very slowly, as if it is causing him effort and that he stumbles a lot. He also seems confused. I gave him some pain medication to see if it would help him, but I see no improvement yet. I'm assuming it's old age, but I'm keeping an eye on him and will probably end up taking him to the vet. He gets stuck in little corners as if he's temporarily unaware of where he is and needs to be redirected. He leans into them and doesn't move. He just stands there. I am concerned. If anybody has any experience with aging cocker spaniels, then please let me know, or any other aging dog for that matter.

It's slowly becoming morning and today is the day that I go to the hairdresser and to my GP. My hairdresser appointment is at 9 am, so there will be no going back to bed for me. Not that I am in the mood for that. I'm in the mood to get my hair cut.

I hope you all have a wonderful (smokeless)day.

Ciao,
Nora