Days Without a Cigarette: 6.78125
Days Without Nicotine: 0
Dollars Saved: $0.21
There are no shortage of advantages to being a non-smoker. And if we were purely logical beings, things like “I’m less likely to die of cancer later” would be all the motivation we would need. But that’s way too ephemeral when you’re dealing with an addiction like nicotine. I’m not gonna notice myself not having gotten cancer. And if I do, I’m not gonna notice it soon.
So to help keep me motivated, I looked online at a bunch of those “after so many days without cigarettes, X” lists. And some of them had good stuff, but an awful lot of it was stuff like “By now your blood circulation is X percent better than Y”, which are impossible to get excited about. And where they were offering up stuff a little more concrete, it was either useless or negative. Like, “You’ll be able to run farther.” Okay, but how am I ever gonna know that if no mountain lions ever chase me? Or “your sense of smell will improve” as though there’s anything in Waycross, Georgia that I want to smell.
So as a service to other people who might be fighting through this along with me (or afterwards), I wanted to compile a slightly more useful list of stuff that I’ve noticed after going nearly a week without cigarettes.
- I can tell how bad my breath smells. It’s terrifying to realize that it’s just smelled this bad the whole time and I never noticed.
- It’s been chilly and rainy the last few days and it barely mattered since I didn’t have to stand outside in it 23 times a day.
- I recorded an episode this afternoon and only had to mute one cough.
- Waking up doesn’t make me cough anymore.
- I’m proud of myself. That weighs a lot more than I thought it would.
- People are way quicker to forgive my angry outbursts.
- I’ve finally reached a point where the nicotine patches cost less than the money I’ve saved not buying cigarettes, so I’m in the black on this.
- I’ve learned that I had more friends than I thought, and I thought I had a lot of friends.
Noah Quits 
Happy to hear things are getting a bit better.
LikeLike
Super proud of you, and really happy you and Lucinda will be healthier! We need you in our lives.
LikeLike
Because of the breath smell thing I’d imagine that maybe you’ve gotten to the ‘taste has improved’ stage as well. Since you like coffee may I suggest going out and getting yourself a fancy ass coffee some place? Treat yoself and hopefully also add another bullet to the list. I still find “Coffee tastes so much better” to be one of the major plus points of not smoking any longer. 🙂
I can’t know for sure if you will have this experience of course, but I think you really like coffee so it’s worth a go perhaps?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I snorted at my desk when I read “as though there’s anything in Waycross, Georgia that I want to smell.” Glad to see that sense of humor is alive and well. 🙂
LikeLike
Wait, Eli has a blog?
LikeLike
Oh my god the breath thing. Brushing your teeth as an ex-smoker is a horrifying revelation – when you realize all the crap you’re NOT spitting out twice a day. Something I noticed that helped me (though it took a few weeks) was how much cleaner my house was. Smoking makes a shocking contribution to the amount of dust in the air, not to mention all the little spills of tobacco and ash. A few weeks after I quit for good I found a shirt that hadn’t made its way into the laundry and fucking hell did that thing stink of stale tobacco. I immediately felt bad for anyone who had to smell me over the previous 25 years.
Keep paying attention to that shit man, as time passes it will all add up in your brain and give you ammunition in the face of cravings.
LikeLike