January 12, 2010
I'm two weeks quit (smoking -- not crack) and just starting to get back a sense of myself, whoever the hell that is.I'm on Chantix because there's absolutely no way I could have pursued this successfully on my own because I'm weak (that's right, like an 80-year-old bladder, I am w e a k) and I am experiencing a few side effects. The one that is finally beginning to dissipate, I blame mostly on the cigarettes; everything else that's wrong with me, related or not, I blame on the Chantix. I have a real issue with concentration. I sit down to write about my progress or e mail someone I haven't been in touch with for awhile or read an e mail sent to me by someone I'm not particularly interested in receiving an e mail from and as soon as I'm one sentence in--
Subaru.
And who the hell knows what Impreza sedans have to do with anything but there I am, off to Da Google to check out if it has side mounted air bags, or looking up the lyrics to Brides of Destruction which is even further from the original goal. I have three half-finished, half-thought out, half-assed e mail drafts in my Thunderbird account that I started last week and I still don't feel like paying that much attention to whatever it was I had an inclination to previously say. Or something.
Another side effect is insomnia. It's like standing in a check-out line holding three heavy cases of beer and all the people in front of you are moving forward happily and yet, as the minutes press on, you're nowhere nearer the cashier and you get so frustrated because you're pretty sure your compromised arms can actually get pulled out of their sockets if you hold on much longer to the beer which weighs as much as a large child with a full stomach but no one seems to really care. And not sleeping probably doesn't help the old concentration issue (as noted when I found myself nodding off today at the Kohl's Customer Service area while waiting for Sassy McSasserson to get off the damed phone).
Speaking of eels, another side effect of Chantix, which is virtually the blackest mark against the lifestyle to which I have been so long accustomed, is that I no longer feel any particular need to drink to excess. (!) Two weeks ago (fourteen days previous, which includes at least one weekend) I purchased a six-pack of Miller Chill and STILL have one left untouched in my refrigerator. I haven't even handled a bottle of Captain until this very eve. Soda? Yeah, I can only get about a third of a can down in the morning and then I'm basically done with caffeine. So I quit smoking and don't really feel like drinking.... what the hell have I left for vices?! I'm becoming one of those 'healthy people' and I'm not sure if I like it.
Thank God I'm now twenty pounds overweight and still collecting unemployment or else I might have really started to feel good about myself.
Collective Soul.
Pretty much digging the intense dream state, however, so thanks Chantix for making me feel like I'm tripping on acid without the whole "let's jump off a tall building as I'm currently convinced I can fly" thing. For the most part, my dreams just seem overly intense. They're like memories of something that never actually happened. I wake up completely affected and convinced that my dream was real. Which is totally awesome if I you're dreaming about Bret Michaels before "Rock of Love" and after the Glam Phase (and perhaps without eyeliner) but mostly aggravating when you dream about lighting up a yummy, tasty, super satisfying Marlboro Light cigarette that's so real you can feel it and even go so far as to search for it in the morning, convinced it's hidden somewhere in your apartment, before you're fully conscious.
So that sucks.
The only other side effect I seem to have relates to regularity which could probably be categorized as TMI but I thought it worth mentioning since it pisses me right the F off.
Doing great otherwise.
Now I just need that whole Smoking Ban thing to go through so I can go back to my favorite bar (without shaking like a recovering heroine addict) and seriously get to work on this whole 'aversion to drinking' bullshit.
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Corrections which are not entirely necessary for the overall, basic comprehension of this story:
* It's not Bret Michaels I'm dreaming about (night after night) -- it's Shane -- but I was hoping to get around that one by naming a person who looks a lot like Shane but isn't actually him and, I'm sorry, but after seeing Troy Aikman this past weekend, I think Shane resembles the lead singer of Poison more so than the Cowboy's ex-quarterback these days.
* By "yummy, tasty, super satisfying cigarette" I meant over priced, cancer causing, manipulating, hack worthy, piece-of-shit stick of tar.
* By Collective Soul, I meant Vertical Horizon.