Day 23: Taste buds return and all is salty

Regardless of whatever mental games I'm playing with myself by, "reverting to being a non-smoker" rather than, "quitting smoking", the fact remains that 28 years of smoking have more or less killed the majority of the taste buds in my mouth and nose.

After 21 days of non-abuse, these taste buds apparently re-grow and throw your whole eating and drinking experience out of gear.

My favourite beer tastes salty.

My favourite chicken dish tastes salty.

There's too much salt in just about everything I'm eating and drinking.

One more aspect to contend with in reverting to non-smoker status.

Deepak

Day 22 of reverting to non-smoker status

It has been surprisingly easy to stay smoke-free.

One thing I've realised that the triggers I thought were operational in getting me to reach for a cigarette weren't the real triggers. Stress wasn't a trigger. A glass of beer wasn't one either. A spat with a loved one wasn't. All the messages I had been getting as to why I smoked were patently false.

The trigger for me, surprisingly, was boredom.

I'm not considering habit, which isn't a trigger at all. Habit doesn't create an urge to smoke, the hand just automatically reaches for a cigarette at certain intervals or in certain situations.

I was forced to sit in the dark for 3 hours with no TV and no Internet one night and that turned out to be the toughest night of all in keeping away from a smoke. The sheer boredom of having nothing to do (I quickly disposed of the two books I had been reading in parallel... I read VERY quickly) tempted me again and again to go buy a ciggie. Even so, it wasn't that bad. Just recalling the awful taste of that tentative puff after reverting to non-smoker status was enough to keep me from one every time the urge hit.

I may be onto something here.

Day 13 of reverting to non-smoker status

I find that the biggest temptation to reach for a ciggy isn't while drinking or when I'm tense. It's, hold your breath, when I'm BORED!

I had never realised that I had gotten into the habit of reaching for a cigarette when I was bored. I always thought I smoked when events such as morning tea, post-lunch, evening cocktail, tension at work, etc., were triggered.

I thought I chain-smoked while setting up for a play was because I was tense about staging it. But when I come to think of it, I wasn't that tense. For example, on the morning of the day I was to stage a play, just before I left for the venue to supervise the set-up, I got a call from the Police saying that I had failed to secure permission for using loudspeakers. Apparently, a play comes under "special events" (or something like that) and needs special permission for using loudspeakers, even if one is using the regular sound system of the restaurant (I usually stage my plays at a restaurant). So I just handed over responsibility of setting up the stage to a good friend who'd worked with me while I marched over to the Police Commissioner's Office to sort things out. One would expect that I'd be super-tense; would I get the permission in time? having gotten the permission, would I reach the venue to find that my inexperienced friend had made a shambles of the set-up? would my audience ever forgive me (that was the biggest worry).

Under such circumstances, I should have been smoking at every chance I got. Instead, I went from clerk to clerk, constable to constable, Inspector to Inspector, right up to the Assistant Commissioner of Police with no thought of a cigarette crossing my mind. The show was to begin at nine p.m. I got the permission at 8 p.m.

At 7:45, when the Inspector told me it would take time and I could go out and return in ten to fifteen minutes, I should have been out of his office like a shot to sneak a few puffs but I didn't move. I had, after all, been pursuing this precious piece of paper since 11:00 a.m. I had skipped lunch and tea so that I could diligently follow up the various forms and make sure they reached the right constables and clerks (damn the Brits for introducing bureaucracy in India!). I should have been a bundle of nerves dying for a cigarette!

So, in retrospect, the reason I was chain-smoking at stage set-up when I didn't have all these worries was because I was bored! I use professional set, sound and light guys and all I really need to do is give them the brief and they do the rest, unsupervised.

Will revelations never cease to amaze?

So, if you smoke too much (or think you smoke too much) perhaps you should seek tension rather than avoid it. Go do something!

Then check if you smoked while you were doing it.

Deepak

Hurted, but not too much

I thought it would be effing difficult to handle the rejection.

Wasn't bad at all.

Couple of urges every eight hours.

Easily handled.

Classic, "return to smoking" triggers

This is day 7 of my reversion to being a non-smoker.

Today I got an email from someone very dear to me, misunderstanding completely my enthusiastic mail to her that I was once again a non-smoker. She thought that I wanted to provide proof to her. I just wanted to share with her the process.

She also cut off communication on an unrelated matter. I call it a misunderstanding, she'll probably call it flirting, but the issue is, cutting off communication with someone I hold dear is a trigger to light up.

I won't deny that I have felt, at about intervals of 10 minutes, the desire to smoke, ever since I read her mail.

This was something I had not anticipated. I had anticipated the linkage between smoking and drinking - a drink is usually accompanied by a smoke. I had anticipated the linkage between an event and a smoke. Events, being high-energy demanding, usually lead to chain-smoking on the part of the event provider.

I managed the drinking without smoking, I managed the event without smoking.

From my blindside hit the most important woman in my life, saying it's off.

NOW I can see how tough it is. I've been through the usual attempts to quit, and I usually give in at the first opportunity, since I know I'm going back to smoking under those attempts anyway.

However, here's a situation where I definitely dislike the taste of the smoke but circumstances draw me to that forbidden puff.

Will I survive the night?

This was something I had not anticipated. I'll let you know.

Deepak

Reverted to being a non-smoker

I've been a smoker (tobacco only) for almost 30 years. Been a heavy smoker for the last few (about the last 20... LOL).

Made many attempts to quit too. Sometimes to impress various females ("For you, I'd do anything"). Those were rare but it was a given that I'd be smoking while out of her sight. Sometimes to try and exert some kind of control over my life - "DO I OWN MY LIFE OR NOT?" my mind would scream and I'd quit. Only to start again at the next cigarette-lighting cue.

Something strange happened last Friday. Those of you who want to attribute it to being Good Friday are welcome to do so and to assign whatever significance they wish to THIS particular Good Friday. What happened was, I was reading Tony Robbins' book, where he describes how he stopped over-eating. If you want to know how he did it, buy his book, simply coz I can't explain. He's written the book well and simply handing you the formula won't work. You need to read the chapters that came before.

So I thought of quitting smoking - again. Then I thought, "Why not revert to being a non-smoker?" After all, I was a non-smoker for the first 16 years of my life.

So I picked up a ciggie as if it were the first ciggie I'd ever smoke. I smelled it, felt it in my fingers, etc.

Then I put it in my mouth, lit it and took a drag, taking care to TASTE the darned smoke.

It tastes AWFUL!

It had tasted awful the first time I had taken a drag at 16 too, really. But it was the cool thing to do and I did it and progressed from a stolen drag every now and then to a ciggie a day to nearly 40 a day.

So I decided to approach every ciggie I lit from then on as the first ciggie I would ever light.

The rationalisation started immediately; "You know you're going to start again, so why torture yourself?"

So I held off for a bit, then "gave in" and again, treated it as the first ciggie I'd ever light.

Awful. Stubbed it out after the first puff.

Tried again a few hours later, when the demons were going at me full swing.

Still tasted awful. Stubbed it out after the first puff.

I haven't smoked since Good Friday of 2009. Sure, it's early days yet. They say, "Once a smoker, always a smoker". That may happen. It's just that I think I've reverted to being a non-smoker.

I haven't even bothered to give in to the demons since Sunday. It tastes awful, so why bother? I've been through a very fretsome event last evening, sans a smoke. Usually, I'd be chain-smoking throughout, unable to taste the excellent wood-fired pizza at the end of the event.

No anxiety, no irritation, nothing.

I won't pretend that I feel fresher, or more energetic, or anything other than being Deepak. I'm just Deepak, the non-smoker, and that's fine by me.

Deepak