In which I describe the awesome side-effects of suddenly halting one’s intake of various toxins.

I smoked my last cigarette in the parking lot of a condo in Joseph, OR on August 14th.

I had been heading toward that moment for months, really, and I was ready for it. I didn’t even want that final cigarette because it was the middle of the night after a gig, I was tired, and I’d been more or less chain smoking for the entire week.

I was acutely aware of how glamorous it is to be addicted: everyone else was inside, chatting, eating, getting ready for bed, and there I was, standing in a ditch, sucking on a cigarette like a total loser. Oh, yes, I planned my quit well. I’ll never forget that last smoke.

For the next seven days I gave myself permission to eat anything and everything I wanted to. I threw out any pretense about portion control or intelligent food choices or calories. I ate Mexican food, I ate entire bags of cheesy poofs, I ate chocolate truffles. I ate brie, I ate huge salads, I ate dill pickle sunflower seeds. I cleaned my plate every single time I had a meal. And on the eighth day, I stopped and went back to my normal, non-dieting-but-still-fairly-conscious eating ways.

Today is my eleventh day of non-smoking. I’ve had many, many non-smoking milestones that I’m really proud of, but this post isn’t about that. It’s about what’s happening to my body:

I’m exhausted. It’s all I can do to keep my eyes open. I went down for a brief nap yesterday evening – I was planning to do some late night QA testing – and slept, without moving, for ten and a half hours.

I’m fat. I’ve gained eight pounds in less than two weeks, but I can’t figure out how a little extra caloric indulgence turned into this. I think I’m retaining water in new and strange ways, because The Curseâ„¢ ended yesterday and the fifth day of my cycle is usually my skinniest day of the whole month.

I can now go hours without craving anything, but the rest of the time I have a vague, itchy, cellular drive to… something. Nothing in particular, just something.

I’ve finally figured out how to use the nicotine lozenges to their best effect, but I only manage to get six or eight miligrams of nicotine into my body each day. (I’m supposed to have eighteen per day for a month.) My quit plan has me using these things through November, and I intend to do that, but I might just forget to use them before that.

They’re great for emergency craving management, such as when I find myself in a room full of smokers, or I get into a vehicle I used to smoke in, or I’m on break in between sets at a gig, etc. but I have a hard time remembering to use them when I’m engaged in something that doesn’t remind me of smoking.

I haven’t begun any lung cleansing yet. I was expecting a lot of coughing and throat-clearing and sinus-draining, but I’ve experienced almost none of that. When I inhale, it’s free and clear and there’s no gurgling or anything. My lungs sound and feel like I just took a decongestant.

I’m hyper emotional today. I’ve misted up about five times about nothing. Again, I’m not in the emotional part of my cycle, so I’m attributing this experience to quitting as well.

Something clicked in my psyche somewhere; I no longer want to smoke. I mean, I have cravings, but I’ve figured out that there’s no such thing as “just a drag” or “just one cigarette;” I spent far too long making too many neuroreceptors for that to be possible. I either smoke, or I don’t. And I don’t want to suffer the long-term effects of smoking, so I can’t smoke.

The last time I quit, my voice responded with great suppleness within days. This time, I was expecting another rapid recovery but I’m not getting it. I don’t understand that, either.

So I’m fat, moody, unsatisfied, AND my voice sounds just like it did before I quit. In conclusion, quitting smoking appears to be just like PMS.

Only me, my babies. Only me.