Cutting the sticks off lollipops...
I'll start this with an admission.
A while back I started smoking again. See, I can always use other people as an excuse. If they do it? I can too! Anyway: I've quit again. I only got a week or so into it. I've been working on my health and cardio fitness for the last year, and it was ridiculous to start smoking right before the race season I've been working towards started...
I quit via the nicotine patch. They've been the only thing that has ever really worked for me. I love them. I love the weird vivid dreams they give me whenever I use them... for about a week. After that, the patch gives me night terrors, and I wake up several hours after going to sleep with a sudden shock, and am WIDE awake with fight or flight freakouts.
I had a lot of extra patches, since I quit early on, and kind of used a self-prescribed course which took me through the "Steps" very rapidly. I smoked a pack a day for a week, not 30 years, you know?
During this, I was telling my boss about the vivid dreams. He was excited by this. The next day I brought him the lowest dose, a 7mg transdermal patch, which applies 7mg of nicotine over a 24 hour period. He thanked me, and took it home to try it.
Nothing.
Of COURSE that calls for bigger medicine. I brought him one of the "Step 2" patches I was on. 14mg of nicotine applied transdermally over 24 hours. He again thanked me, and left to try it. The next day he was called out of town for some family business, and I hadn't heard much from him until today.
It turns out, he wasn't having the weird dream effects that were typical to me, so he bought a box of them himself to try over time. The next size up. 21mg of nicotine, over 24 hours. Then, he stopped. He said his head was spinning, he was grouchy... as an ex-smoker he recognized it. He was having nicotine withdrawls. He'd become addicted to the patch!
He's back down to 14mg patches now... tomorrow I'm going to be bringing him some 7mg patches so he can continue to ween himself off.
A while back I started smoking again. See, I can always use other people as an excuse. If they do it? I can too! Anyway: I've quit again. I only got a week or so into it. I've been working on my health and cardio fitness for the last year, and it was ridiculous to start smoking right before the race season I've been working towards started...
I quit via the nicotine patch. They've been the only thing that has ever really worked for me. I love them. I love the weird vivid dreams they give me whenever I use them... for about a week. After that, the patch gives me night terrors, and I wake up several hours after going to sleep with a sudden shock, and am WIDE awake with fight or flight freakouts.
I had a lot of extra patches, since I quit early on, and kind of used a self-prescribed course which took me through the "Steps" very rapidly. I smoked a pack a day for a week, not 30 years, you know?
During this, I was telling my boss about the vivid dreams. He was excited by this. The next day I brought him the lowest dose, a 7mg transdermal patch, which applies 7mg of nicotine over a 24 hour period. He thanked me, and took it home to try it.
Nothing.
Of COURSE that calls for bigger medicine. I brought him one of the "Step 2" patches I was on. 14mg of nicotine applied transdermally over 24 hours. He again thanked me, and left to try it. The next day he was called out of town for some family business, and I hadn't heard much from him until today.
It turns out, he wasn't having the weird dream effects that were typical to me, so he bought a box of them himself to try over time. The next size up. 21mg of nicotine, over 24 hours. Then, he stopped. He said his head was spinning, he was grouchy... as an ex-smoker he recognized it. He was having nicotine withdrawls. He'd become addicted to the patch!
He's back down to 14mg patches now... tomorrow I'm going to be bringing him some 7mg patches so he can continue to ween himself off.