A Week Since I Quit Smoking

Okay, I've quit smoking for a week. Holiday smoking, that is. I think LouLou came down just before Xmas with a bag of pot. and we mixed joints with tobacco, and that always leads onto some cigarette smoking for a short time afterwards, as I dry out and come off the marijuana.

But, this year we headed up to NSW to visit Mark for 10 days, just before Xmas, so I didn't quit before doing that, as I can become quite piggy for pot, craving the tobacco inside them, if I am not smoking ciggies at the same time. It is the tobacco, it is the addictive bit. I don't really think people become addicted to weed. And if it is not my pot to which I have unfettered access, it can become problematic, for me, and for the owner of the dope, with both of us feeling anxiety, for different reasons, of course, me feeling terrible about hogging someone else’s stash, always with the threat of being cut off, and the owner of the said pot as they watch it disappear before their very eyes. So, I kept the cigarettes going until then.

Then there was a cooling off period once I was home, which in this instance lasted for a week, before I stopped smoking altogether. I am cheating there just a bit, as I am deliberately, or not, leaving out the 4 days we spent at Jill’s, where no pot was consumed, but I did continue smoking the ciggies none the less.

And here it is a week later. Funny, but right at this point, it feels like months since I have smoked, which I take as a good sign. I'm not sure if it is, actually a good sign, because, if anything, that may encourage me to smoke, if it did anything at all.

"Sure, I'll have a smoke, I haven't smoked for the longest time, after all."

I'm a keen smoker, it is something I am good at, which is why I have to stop doing it, if all medical opinion is to be believed, and I do believe it. I am pleased that I can stop now, like I just have. If someone told me I could become an occasional smoker, I'd never have believed them.

"Nah, not possible, if I have one, I'll be back on them." I wonder if this is propaganda spread by the Quit Campaign?

I should learn to smoke my joints without tobacco, you'd think that would be the easiest option, but they just don't seem to be as nice to smoke, sadly, sans tobacco, which is kind of stupid as most of the world smokes its joints without tobacco, we're in the minority mixing it with the brown stuff.

It is true, I feel so much better when I don't smoke. And here is the bit which Sam has trouble processing, I don't even like it, any more, not since I quit permanent smoking. It makes me feel definitely second rate to my non-smoking self. I feel much healthier when I don't smoke, my head feels clearer, my chest feels freer – I'm not sure that even makes sense, but there is a certain 'lightness' to my body when I don't pump smoke into it. I don't get headaches, I feel more relaxed. I do think it is a myth that smoking relaxes you, I don't think that is true at all. I wonder if that was propaganda spread by the big tobacco companies.

And as much as I am loathed to give the government any credence for a policy success, who can afford to smoke any longer. I don't want to give the government any credit, as I don't think it is a fair policy, nor do I really believe it is a genuine one. It is a tax grab wrapped up in some social benefit, which, I think does work, but I think that is just double talk by a government to screw more taxes out of us. And, yet again, out of the people who can least afford it. I think modern governments don’t give a toss about their people, caring much more for sneaky tax grabs and their own longevity.