…over Nicotine, my adversary of over 30 years.
I went cold turkey on tobacco on the Tuesday, May 1, and today, 13 days later, I am confident to say that i will never smoke again. It was my umpteenth attempt at stopping, with all previous attempts having obviously and disastrously failed. Unlike previous attempts, this was a move that came from deep inside me…with the resolve gaining strength over the two week period that i contemplated the decision to quit. When the time came, I smoked the last of the cigarettes I had, emptied and washed the glass ashtray and that was it… Then the pains started.
First it was the restlessness that comes with not having a smoke, the lack of concentration in what one is doing, the intermittent pseudo-headaches, nausea, hand tremors… These I showed the middle finger this time. Then I noticed that my alimentary system had gone on a kind of shut down. I had not gone between Tuesday and Friday and the stomach had not only become extremely uncomfortable but was now beginning to become painful. Then, early Saturday morning, it opened up and I could not stay away from the loo for the entire weekend. @Phylgee now you know why i appeared not to be sleeping; I was actually sleeping one hour at a time and was lucky this phase coincided with a weekend…
All this time the devil would appear in the corner of my mind and tell me, “You only need one puff and all the pain will go away, just one stick”…but I looked at Devil’s red eye and told him “You are a liar…”
I started smoking as a joke during the holidays when in secondary school. I smoked through A levels and college…the fact that i worked in high stress jobs didn’t help matters and i grew from an eight-stick a day when in college to the pack-a-day smoker i was as of last week.
Smoking is a terrible habit that can sometimes be humiliating. One time when I was in third or fourth form, I asked for a puff from a mtoto wa sonko who was in form six. he eyeballed me, told me, “hii ni Embassy utajichoma” then he stepped on the three-quarter smoked fag and haughtily left me there having been put in my place, Apparently, peasants could not know how to smoke expensive cigarettes without harming themselves. Engineer Ngari mungu anakuona popote ulipo!
I have also done my share of humiliating myself; during my drinking days i did not entertain those guys who normally lurk by the pool table with a drink but come to you for smoke. When you ask them why they don’t get their own fags they say that in that establishment they are selling by the packet…“So, if they are selling by the packet we smoke mine because i am the one whose pocket does not feel the pain from buying a packet?”…
Tobacco/nicotine addiction is no joke. Lack of nicotine has sometimes left me with a writer’s block or in some kind of mental shutdown when i was supposed to be on top analyzing important stuff. It was then that i failed during my previous attempts to stop. I have failed so many times before that my wife was least impressed when i let out that i had stopped. she believes i will never succeed but this time she’s sure to be surprised. I thank gods that tobacco is now in the past for me.
I wish to thank @Eng’iti , my friend and sometimes political adversary, for his challenge over why I am critical of people who smoke fangi yet I have been unable to stop smoking. Your question had me thinking and it is the one that saw me stop. There was no drama, I just finished what i had and said that is it. On Thursday 10th, I wore a jacket I had not worn in a long time and what did I find in the pocket? An unopened packet of Embassy Kings. I left everything I was doing in the office and took it to my previously favourite tobacconist and she refunded my money. In spite of losing a customer of long-standing, she’s happy I have stopped. Eng’iti pitia Nyeri mkono wa mbuzi choma unakungojea.
One lesson I have learnt from my dalliance with tobacco - the addiction is easier to kick away if the resolve comes from inside yourself. No amount of patronizing instructions from doctors, shaming religious leaders and lectures of critical relatives will give you the inner strength you need to overcome the discomfort of those first few days when the quit initiative may succeed or fail.
Finally, I thank you my dear @Guru for your encouragement. That you didn’t sound skeptical was inspiring.
To all those who are trying to quit - All I can tell you is that it is doable.