Chased by the Black Dog

Twenty Three Hours

It is now twenty-two hours and fifty-five minutes since I extinguished what I sincerely hope will be my last ever cigarette.  I am very pleased with myself.  I want to gnaw my leg off out of sheer craving for a cigarette but I am resisting both gnawing and smoking.

The ‘Champix moment’ that I had been waiting on did not come so I had to bite the bullet and stop despite still craving the evil cancer-sticks.  Last night I was feeling unusually agitated knowing that today was ‘clean day’ so I had a little sedative and an early night.  I smoked my last cigarette right on 8.00pm and went to bed.  The neat round number for finishing time appealed to me and after affirming aloud that I did not even enjoy the cigarette I flushed the rest of the pack down the toilet and pissed on them.

The hardest bit of today was this morning’s trip to the shops where the evil voice in my head started chanting that I could buy a pack and start the quit process tomorrow. The power of ‘the evil voice’ continues to amaze me, it slips in surreptitiously and speaks irrationally.  This was closely followed by how hard it was to miss my after dinner cigarette- I’m writing this post as a strategy to distract myself from wanting that cigarette.

The cravings have been coming and going today.  I try just to sit with the cravings, I observe them, concentrate on what I’m feeling and then affirm that it is just a craving that will pass.  Otherwise, I miss all my ritual cigarettes for the action of coming to my desk to smoke but checking Facebook is a suitable replacement compulsion. 

I do not quite know what the cravings are, I think that they must be largely psychological.  The Champix has my nicotine receptors numbed so it is not a case of actually craving nicotine.  Unfortunately, the Champix does not avoid the other parts of nicotine withdrawal so I need to be ready for my body to give me some grief over the next two weeks.  It is likely that my moods will get darker before we emerge at the sunny end of this process.

I do think that the Champix is not knocking me around as much as it has on previous occasions.  I have not experienced the very high levels of depression, anxiety and agitation that I associate with the drug. Of course, anything could happen while I go through the nicotine withdrawal.

With this blog entry written and a phone call taken I am twenty-eight minutes from my twenty-four hour anniversary. If only I could celebrate it with a nerve calming cigarette…

Waiting on Miracles.

A better day today, probably because I saw my counsellor- Carlos.  Carlos is particularly valuable at the moment because he has been through this whole tedious stop smoking thing.

Our conversation did leave me a bit worried.  The ‘Champix moment’ that I have been waiting for, where one is smoking and realises ‘yuk, I just don’t want to be doing this any longer’ may not come.  The third time that he did Champix (I’m on my third go) Carlos did not have that experience.  He just had to stop and endure a few days of intense cravings.  I am not at all sure that I can do that.  I am equally unsure what options I have if ‘the moment’ does not come.  Ideally, the moment should have occurred by now. I would give a lot right now to be able to enact some kind of objective test to see whether my nicotine receptors have switched off.  I may be smoking only out of compulsion at this point.  Unfortunately, beating compulsions is not my strongest character trait.

I plan to give it until the weekend.  On Saturday I have to do a training program as a part of my Compeer volunteering.  It’s compulsory suicide awareness training.  The bitter-sweet angle on this is that my client’s profile doesn’t include suicidality, I’m much more likely to become suicidal than he is.  I certainly did last time I was on the Champix.  I do not want to be feeling wretched for a suicide prevention workshop so I have a perfect reason to keep smoking until next week.  Sunday as my first cigarette free day seems a good idea but scares me dreadfully.

Good news came in today.  Kristy’s baby-on-the-way is healthy and her pregnancy all going well.  I’m going to be ‘uncle’ to a baby boy.  I was convinced that she would have a girl but reports are that he was very apparently a boy in the ultrasound.  I wonder at what women endure during pregnancy, it is so much easier to enjoy the miracle of new life from the safe sidelines.  This miracle is one I’m very excited about.

Anhedonic Annie

A flaw in my plan.  Keeping a blog about depression and anxiety is a good idea [is it?] but there is an inbuilt problem. More often than not, I choose not to blog because I’m too depressed and anxious.

I have spent the last three days alone and chronically bored.  I want more out of life but cannot muster the strength to go out and find it.  I am so very tired of being alone.

The Champix is up to day twelve and really starting to have its way with me.  Depression and anxiety levels are way up.  I’m experiencing the early signs of being anhedonic.  Nothing feels worth it, there is no pleasure in the basic things like eating and showering.  Only when it’s taken away does one realise how much we rely on pleasure as a motivator.

I can feel the Champix starting to numb my nicotine receptors, there is less satisfaction from the cigarettes.  I’m not quite ready to stop smoking.  My previous experience has been that a ‘Champix moment’ occurs where one simply doesn’t want to smoke any longer.  I’m expecting that moment any day now.  The box says to stop smoking between day eight and day fourteen. Ideally I should set a date but I’m content to wait until my body gives me the cue.

I saw Mary Poppins (alone) on Friday night and thoroughly didn’t enjoy it. I’m not sure if the reason for not enjoying it was the encroaching anhedonia or whether it was just too slick, smug and substance-less a production.  I was unlucky enough to get an understudy playing Mary and she was adequate but lacked charisma.  The whole thing just felt too calculated, too much like a Disney marketing exercise with the souvenir umbrella available in the foyer.

This week’s kill-time series is Six Feet Under which I kind of like but it’s hardly the ideal thing to be watching when one’s thoughts and feelings are already a bit low.  It is helping me think what I’d like my funeral to be like. I want a church funeral of course, and then to be cremated at minimum cost with minimum fuss.  I have an absolute abhorrence of open caskets and won’t have any of that. Maybe I should write this all down for someone.

Tomorrow I get to see my [wonderful] counsellor.  I’m looking forward to an hour that is all about ME.  I’m being taught some breathing and relaxation stuff to help manage the anxiety that looks to have a lot of potential. I breathe all wrong- shallow anxiety breath rather than the prescribed diaphragmatic breathing.

Pax [my tabby-cat boy] just came out to see me.  He is protesting because I tried a new variety of food and it does not meet with his regal approval.  I must be yelled at and generally chastened.

Somewhere in the fog I managed to lodge my university application.  All things being well I’ll be doing a Master of Cultural Studies at Sydney Uni next year.

Anyone who wants to try out the comments function here is welcome.  I’m still not convinced that it works.

Another Decision

After a significant time spent dwelling on what to apply for for my Masters next year I have reached a decision.  I had been vacillating between Sociology at USyd and Writing at UTS.  The decision I have reached is that neither is right for me and that I should apply for the Masters in Cultural Studies at USyd. 

This position was reached when I was warned that the sociology might be a bit more empirical than theoretical and I am nothing in academe if not a creature of theory.  The writing I have decided I can explore outside of university with, say, a course at Sydney Writers Centre to see if it fits.  If I find an inner-writer there’s nothing stopping me from doing the Masters in Writing the year after.

In other news, I’m surviving the Champix.  I’m still only at half dose, the dosage builds up slowly.  I had some nausea starting out but that has cleared now.  I envisage that, about ten days from now, I will be a non-smoker again.  I certainly hope so, I hate the yellow stains on my fingers.