Archive for addiction

>Falling down hard…

September 19, 2010 at 11:44 am · Filed under addiction, cigarettes, habits, life, moods, nap, nephew, reality, schedule, sleep, stubbornness, the weekend

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At 10:30 this morning I went to the gas station and bought a pack of cigarettes and I have been smoking them ever since. I am going to smoke every cigarette until they’re all gone and then I’m going to quit all over again. A terrible desire to smoke came over me and I couldn’t contain myself any longer. I wasn’t looking forward to the day and had not slept well. I was worried about coping and couldn’t imagine the day without a cigarette. I could have just had two or three, but now that I have them, I want all of them. It seems like they are the most precious things I’ve ever had. They are so neat and pretty in their rectangular pack. I’m in trouble, aren’t I?

I will assume that this is just an episode I’m going through, like a drunk falling off the wagon. I’ll get back on the wagon as soon as I can. As soon as all these cigarettes are gone anyway, because I’m enjoying them too much. I’m not courageous enough to flush them down the toilet. Not yet, anyway.

I didn’t sleep well and at first didn’t even go to bed. I sat in my armchair with my book and fell asleep there. I woke up a few hours later and turned on the computer. I should have gone straight to bed, but I don’t seem to be thinking clearly these last 24 hours. I did make it to bed eventually, but I didn’t sleep long enough and now my schedule is all messed up.

I think my increasingly bad mood has to do with the fact that I’m smoking and I just flushed the rest of my cigarettes down the toilet. I’m sure that the poisonous chemicals are not good for my state of mind. On top of that I was awfully disappointed with myself and I didn’t like my own behavior. I would only dislike myself more if I kept on smoking. I tore the cigarettes in pieces and threw them in the toilet bowl. There, that’s it. I need to be able to feel proud of myself and like my behavior. I know I can live without smoking. I just have to continue to do it. Come hell or high water.

It’s not been a good weekend to tell you the truth. I’ve been out of sorts and I don’t know how much stopping smoking has to do with it. In reality I think smoking does my mood no good and I think it is just an illusion for me to think that it does. I actually feel better when I don’t smoke. It’s the habit of smoking that I miss and the instant gratification, but in the long term I don’t think it helps me be in a good mood at all.

But still, I do miss smoking and having to think of other ways to fill my time and keeping myself occupied and having to direct my restless hands and mind along other paths not previously taken. I would be a liar if I said that was not true. What I must try to do is keep my life simplified and not add stress to it by not getting enough sleep and upsetting my schedule and doing things that I normally would not do. I need to keep myself focused on each individual moment and not anticipate so much and try to look into the unforeseen future and worry, which is what I was starting to do.

I have to try, while I quit smoking, to live from moment to moment and not make things so difficult for myself. I have a tendency to want to complicate my life when it shouldn’t be necessary that I do, or when it is even silly to, and I must break that bad habit. I do have to cut myself some slack and go easy on myself. There’s no reason to prove that I can jump through hoops. I will once again return to this moment, right now, and be present in the reality of my life and see the simplicity of it. I’ve made it uncomplicated for a reason.

I’m glad and relieved that I threw those cigarettes away. I was worried about having to smoke the whole pack. I thought that’s what I wanted, but I was not comfortable with the idea. It bothered me that I was so willful.

I’m going to read my book now, or better yet, take a nap. I think that will be nice. It will settle my mind and I will be in a better mood to go celebrate my nephew’s 16th birthday later today.

Ciao,
Nora

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>The day I quit smoking.

September 13, 2010 at 1:26 pm · Filed under addiction, afternoon, books, craving, domestic help, health, moods, reading, smoking

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It’s now the afternoon of the day I quit smoking and things aren’t nearly as bad as I thought they were going to be. I thought I was going to be a nervous wreck by now, tearing out my hair and pacing the floor, searching through the trash for cigarette buds, being emotional and desperate, going to the gas station for a pack of cigarettes and all sorts of other things.

Well, I had all these scenarios in mind, but not the actual one, and that is that I’m pretty calm and only go through cravings sometimes and have a peppermint if I do. That seems to do the job. Every once in a while a sense of panic hits me when I realize that I can’t smoke, but I quickly subdue it and tell myself not to be a wuss. There are worse things in life.

I know that if I were to light a cigarette now, I would suffer from a terrible coughing fit and would not enjoy it at all. I would be bent over double from coughing, because I would not be used to smoking anymore. I do realize now that I had a chronic little cough with phlegm all day long and I really need to get rid of that and I’ll be happy when I have. It’s not healthy and it is my goal to be. I want my lungs to be clean and my bronchi to be in good shape.

I bought the bag of peppermints at the pharmacy. It’s a good thing that they sell candy there, because I bought it as an afterthought and it has come in so handy. It really takes care of the mild frustration I feel when I have a craving for a cigarette. When my mouth wants to be occupied.

I find keeping my mind occupied works well too. Reading is a good activity. I’ve started a new novel. A Virtuous Woman by Kaye Gibbons and I’m reading it quickly, because it’s that kind of a book. It reads very easily, but I think maybe I’m better able to read now that I’m not distracted by my smoking. I can pay better attention and not worry about the ashes falling on my book and having to light up another cigarette yet again.

Every once in a while I think, oh, I will light up a cigarette, but then I think, oh no, I will not, and am disappointed for just a split second, but I am immediately relieved again because I don’t have to. It’s not a compulsion. I can live without it.

The domestic help has been here and cleaned the apartment and I have also liberally sprayed all the rooms with air freshener and opened the windows wide. The ashtrays have been washed and put away. I will not be using them anymore, nor will anyone else, unless they go outside. It’s nice to have clean, never to be used again ashtrays. They will be museum pieces soon.

I wonder what smoking does to your psyche while you inhale all those different chemicals that manufacturers put in the tobacco to get you hooked? It must have all sorts of psychological effects on you that happen as a result of the chemical reactions in your brain. It can’t help but be a mood altering drug or drugs. I wonder very much how I am going to be feeling over the next weeks and months. I bet I’m going to see an improvement in my mood and my overall mental health. That’s something that really motivates me. I want to see how my total health improves.

I remember when I started smoking more than 40 years ago and how tough it was to start and how I really had to fight my body’s resistance against the nicotine. For some reason I was determined to smoke and within a very short time I was hooked. I never was hooked on anything else but nicotine, but it bit me good. I’m just as determined to quit now. I should say, to stay quit, because I already have quit.

I’m going to finish reading my book now. I have the feeling that I’ll be doing a lot of reading in the near future. Luckily, I have enough books to read. And interesting ones too.

Have a good afternoon!

Ciao,

Nora.

Comments (9)

>Let me tell you…

March 24, 2010 at 4:02 pm · Filed under addiction, antipsychotic, cigarettes, coffee, computer, hypomania, moods, obsession, psychiatrist, Rapid cycling., sleep, SPN, welbutrin, writing

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Toward the morning I went to bed and fell asleep within seconds after I laid down. Apparently I was very tired after all and I had just been putting off going to bed. Whatever stubborn streak that was in me I don’t know, but it sure didn’t come in handy, because I probably could have gone to bed much sooner if I hadn’t subconsciously insisted on staying awake. I woke up 4 hours later, refreshed and ready to start the day, although once I was actually up, I did realize that I needed a cup of coffee, because I had some trouble making cigarettes for myself, something I should be able to do blindfolded. I managed to make 5 cigarettes before I gave up and made myself some coffee.

My computer gave me some trouble with starting up and it was making a lot of noise as if it was busy doing a lot of important things that were all a mystery to me. It would not start up the email program and when it finally did, it didn’t react and it had to be shut down in a complicated way that took much time. Then it told me there were updates that needed to be installed. so maybe it had been looking for them. The updates are now installed, but I wasted a good hour doing all these things. Grumble! I don’t like Windows Vista all that much. It’s too cumbersome. It’s still mumbling to itself and I don’t know why. It should be nearly silent now. I may have gotten a white elephant, but with a lot of gigabytes, I do have to give you that.

I may have gone through a rapid cycle and have been hypomanic during the night, until I got a hold of myself and managed to get out of it. I’ll have to tell my SPN about it when I see her this afternoon and make sure she realizes that it’s over now and has been since early this morning. It certainly was an odd experience, especially the way I kept writing posts as if I could not stop myself. It was all a prelude to madness. Well, it’s done now and I’m glad. I wasn’t as comfortable and happy as I was claiming to be. There was a certain amount of messianic mania to it. It had me tottering in a high place. For those of you who were worried, you had good reason to be. It could easily have gotten out of hand.

I will finish writing this post when I’ve seen my SPN. That will prevent me from having to write two posts.

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Apparently the computer triggers my manic behavior, I become obsessed with it and I can feel the obsession grow already now as I write this. The later in the day it gets, the more my obsession grows, until there’s hardly any stopping it and I must write almost constantly and get all my messages across, harmless as they start out to be. As I write more and more I seem to be somebody on a soapbox who is announcing evangelical messages. It seems to be that way to me, anyway. I’m afraid of what profound things I’m going to declare next.

A sane person would say, turn of the computer, but I’m not able to. It’s impossible for me to do that. I would feel completely cut off from the most important thing in my life. It goes on first thing in the morning and it goes out last thing at night. I don’t know how that is for you people, but for me it seems like an addiction, especially now that I have a new computer. I can’t not turn it on.

I’m writing this post now and it has a certain mood to it, so there’s not much I can do about it, except try to lighten it, but it seems impossible to do that. So to offset this post that is set in this mood, I will feel the need to very quickly write another post that is set in another mood. A happy go slappy mood. At least, that’s what I would attempt. And one post would follow the other until I got it right and we were back to the messianic mania again.

It is important that this does not get out of hand tonight, because my medication will need to be adjusted. I don’t want to take too much at the risk of being too hyper to go to sleep and sitting here obsessively writing posts. I don’t want me to get out of hand.

Okay, I just had my SPN on the phone, and she had a consultation about my medication with my psychiatrist, and I’m to cut the Welbutrin by half and increase my antipsychotic medicine temporarily. So, I’m not imagining things and I am being taken seriously and I think they are doing the right things. I’m not happy about increasing the antipsychotic, but since it’s only temporarily, I’ll go along with it. I will now be taking the amount of Welbutrin that ordinary people also start with and not double the amount hat I had insisted on at the risk of becoming manic. It only gets increased if it doesn’t work at the original dose.

Well, that’s good, I’m being pro-active and that makes people help you figure things out. Everybody puts on their thinking caps and helps you work out the problem. People who know about medication and how it works.

Ciao,
Nora

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>I didn’t…

September 1, 2009 at 11:44 am · Filed under addiction, anxiety, birthday, cats, childhood, chores, computer, hairdo, Jesker, laundry, mail, middle of the night, psychiatrist, sofa, SPN, television, the Exfactor, tranquilizers, Windows

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I didn’t hang up the sheets to dry yesterday. I didn’t wash the dog’s blanket either and I didn’t apply flea drops. Don’t ask me why I failed to do these things. Well, yes, ask me. I had a mild case of anxiety and it got in the way of me and I was unable to get out from underneath it, so I finally caved in and took 10 mg of Oxazepam, which is my tranquilizer and a very low dose. I watched television then and after a while I felt better and was more relaxed again. So it seems that the tranquilizers do still have their place in my life and I had to admit that to myself and made peace with it.

I dozed on the sofa and when it was time, I put on my pajamas and took the rest of my medication and then went to sleep on the sofa for the night, because I had a hunkering to sleep there and not in my bed. I felt a bit claustrophobic the last time I slept in my bed and I thought I would see how it was to sleep on the sofa, which I hadn’t done in a while. Well yes, when Joost was here. I had forgotten about that. It seems like such a long time ago, but it was only a few weeks.

I didn’t have any blankets over me and woke up in the middle of the night kind of chilly, but I wrapped my arms around myself and went back to sleep. I kept the television turned on low and was aware of the sound, but not directly of what the voices said, so they did not penetrate my dreams. It does make you sleep restlessly, though, and I should have gotten up to turn the television off, but I didn’t want to be bothered. Those were a few movements to many.

Jesker was confused at one point and went to sleep in the bedroom. He came back after a while and slept beside me on the area rug. There was a cat laying on top of me, but when I turned over to get comfortable, she disappeared, which was good, because it was not working out well with her bony elbows in my ribs.

When I got up this morning, I was a little bit sore from having lain there. The sofa doesn’t quite support my back as well as the mattress, but the soreness disappeared after I was up for a while. I turned the computer on to check my emails and spent some time petting Jesker who was in great need of a cuddle.

After I answered my emails, I shut the computer off and washed my hair, which was totally smashed on one side and sticking up very funky on the other. That’s what you get when you very liberally apply wax and hairspray. It does molest your hair when you sleep on it. After I washed and dried it, I pushed it into place with more wax and hairspray and got it just right, to my amazement. Sometimes that just happens. It’s when, by some miracle, you do exactly the right things.

I walked Jesker and made some cigarettes and then it was time for my appointment with my SPN. I rode my bike over there in a hard wind, but my hair could not be blown out of place and I arrived in one piece, as put together as when I left the apartment.

I told my SPN about the Oxazepam that I had taken and that sometimes, at the end of the afternoon, I feel a bit anxious and I have a harder time settling down and I find it difficult to soothe myself and to get myself in a good place where I’m relaxed and calm and serene and at ease. Actually, I’m a bit of a ball of nerves then, though it is not as bad as could be expected.

So I asked her if I could have a supply of tranquilizers that I could take as needed with a daily limit put on it that I would not exceed. She thought that might be a good idea after she asked me how I dealt with the anxiety, and called my psychiatrist and put the question to him. He agreed also and thought that was a good idea, considering I was coming off such a huge dose, so about 5 minutes later he walked into the office with a prescription for 1 tablet 4 times a day if needed.

He also told me, that while my SPN is on holiday for ten days, he is at all times available to me for the least little thing, no matter how unimportant I think it is. He says it’s better to call, than not to call.

So I’m very much put at ease by that affirmation and by the tranquilizers, which I picked up at the pharmacy on my way home. It’s good to know that there are people out there keeping an eye on me and who I can turn to should there be a need. I’m very much strengthened by the knowledge that I have the tranquilizers and I took one when I got home, because of the deep and reflective nature of the talk that my SPN and I had about my early childhood and how my character was then and how that compares to me now. It seems that I haven’t changed very much, except for becoming more mature and wiser. I’m still a person of extremes as I’ve always been.

So, I hadn’t hung up the laundry outside and now I’m too late, because it’s raining. There’s a nice steady down pour, which I enjoy, and I’ve already walked Jesker, so it’s okay. Let it pour. I hope the laundry on the rack in the bathroom is dry, so I can hang the sheets to dry there.

I’m supposed to do my sets of three chores today, so I’m mentally preparing myself for that. It takes a little courage to get started, although I already opened the mail, but it was not a lot. There is one thing I need to call about, but there is no rush. I hardly feel any pressure. Which is good, because the tranquilizer is working and I don’t think I’m capable of performing in any complicated way. Just imagine that I used to take so many of these. I don’t know how I functioned before.

It’s a good thing I haven’t bothered to wash the windows on the outside, because it would have been a complete waste of time. Isn’t that very convenient for me? Rain will cover up the grime, at least until the weather turns dry again. Then I’ll have to get busy and clean them before the Fall starts, there’s no more time to put it off. Maybe I can talk the Exfactor into helping me with the windows in the back. I figure it’s still his dirt too and I’ve been nice about it. Or is that not good reasoning?

I’m turning 55 next week. I think it’s one heck of a birthday, bigger than turning 50. There must be all sorts of benefits attached to turning 55, but I haven’t heard about any of them yet. I hope to get some nice information about it in the mail. You always hear so much about being 55+. At least in this country you do. I want to reap the rewards and get all sorts of discounts. I’m counting on it.

Well, I suppose I’ll start on my sets of chores now. I’ll have to pull myself away from the computer with some effort. It isn’t easy when you have an addiction, as you will all know. First I’m going to open the back door and the kitchen window to let some fresh air in.

Hope you are having a good day so far. I’m having a splendid one myself looking through rose tinted glasses.

Ciao…

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>Who’s to say?

July 22, 2009 at 4:37 am · Filed under addiction, cheese, collages, computer, creative therapy, doodle, early morning, mental health, persomality, SPN, supermarket, the animals

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Up bright and early, as I have been for these past few days, It seems to agree with me, as I get some work done behind the computer and I get to drink my coffee and savor it and smoke my cigarettes and savor them also. In a while, I will have my tall glass of fruit juice when I take my medicines and really and truly wake up.

Right now I’m sitting in the twilight zone of the darkness before dawn by the light of my desk lamp and it is very cozy. Jesker and Toby are asleep on the blanket in a pact of brotherly love. They’re both black and white and match up well. Toby and Gandhi have had their breakfast and Jesker has had his Bonzo bone, so everyone is temporarily satisfied. I put the emphasis on temporarily, because nobody permanently is. There will have to be a next round of food coming up soon.

I saw my therapist (SPN) yesterday and we had a good talk. I told her that I had made a pact with a fellow blogger that from now on I would consider myself a healthy person just like anybody else and conduct myself accordingly, even though I had some trepidations about it, but she thought it was an excellent idea and imagined me climbing on a healthy horse with my disorders as a little bit of baggage hanging off my saddle and she said that everyone has baggage, and that it is a good idea to think of myself as a regular, ordinary person just like anybody else and to not act out of my “diseased” parts anymore. It’s much better to act out of the healthy parts and deal with the aspects of the disorders as they pop up.

It’s nice to be understood so quickly and to get someone’s blessings so completely. I think she had been trying to make this clear to me before, but I hadn’t heard her, or had not been listening properly. Had not been receptive to the message, which is what happens when you’re not ready and haven’t reached that stage of perception yet.

So anyway, that is where its stands. I am to be a regular, healthy person from now on and behave that way too and call on the healthy parts of me to see me through a problem. Those are the parts that are so visible when I am hypomanic and so very capable of doing things with a great deal of courage and spunk and that are then not suppressed by all sorts of worries and anxieties. She said that if I was capable of it then, I should be capable of it always. It’s in me to be that way.

I also had creative therapy yesterday and finished coloring a doodle I had made and I make these things without a clue as to what I’m going to do with them. They are just a way to fill in time and to keep me busy, they don’t have a real purpose. I must change my tactics and do something useful there, produce something worthwhile. Maybe it is time I make collages on Tuesdays as well. All I need are some really good magazines for the images and texts. I can steal them from the smoker’s room and the coffee break room. There are so many there, they won’t miss one or two.

Oh, there’s a thunderstorm moving in. Fun and games! It’s supposed to be very warm today with rain and apparently thunder too. It will be very tropical here.

I went to the supermarket yesterday to pick up a few things and one of them was a piece of Brie. Since I’ve discovered it, they’ve raised the price to 85 cents. The cheap Camembert is never in supply anymore, so one of these days I’ll have to buy the more expensive one. What is it with me and soft cheeses anyway at the moment? You’d think I had discovered a new food source. I’m going to make myself gain weight eating Brie and Camembert and vanilla yogurt, which I also can’t get enough of. I must have an addiction to dairy foods. I am a true Dutch woman from the land of dairy products. Do any of you have this dairy product addiction?

Well, I think that just about does it for me. I will answer my emails next. I’m being awfully slow poky this morning.

Have a good day.

Ciao…

Comments (5)

>Sunday once more.

March 8, 2009 at 8:10 am · Filed under addiction, computer, house cleaning, mother, schedule, Sunday, time, weather

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Is it just me or is it really Sunday every time I turn around? It seems like it was Sunday just the other day, not so very long ago, and that I was thinking then how it was possible that it was Sunday again. They say that time goes by quicker when you get older, so I must be getting really old, because it is racing by, it seems to me.

I don’t know how I feel about that. I suppose I have mixed feelings. On the one hand I like it, because everything happens quickly and at an amazing speed, at the other hand that also means that the clock is ticking away very quickly and my days on earth are numbered. I will get older quicker, before I’m ready to.

It is an amazing thing that time is relative and that we experience it all at our own speed and that an hour or a minute can feel differently to two different people. A month seems like no time at all to me, while it may seem like a very long time to someone else. One month is nothing, a week is but several long breaths, a day is one inhalation. Poof, and it’s gone. I’m lucky if I know which month we live in, let alone which date it is.

That’s why it is so handy to have the computer on. When I think of it, I can look and see that today is Sunday, March the 8th, 2009. Unluckily for me, today is exactly 20 years since my mother died, but I won’t dwell on that, because life is for the living and not for forever mourning the dead. So, I salute my mother, wherever she is, and get on with it.

It is raining outside, so I can’t walk the dog yet. He patiently waits on his blanket. I need to feed him, but want to wait a little bit, because he’ll really have to go out after that.

After having not done anything significant in the apartment for several days, I finally dragged out the vacuum cleaner yesterday afternoon and vacuumed the whole apartment. That sure made a difference. I get stuck behind the computer and fail in my housework to the detriment of everything. The computer is a dangerous thing for me, because although I always tell myself that I’m not hooked on it, I believe the opposite is true and I spend too many hours behind it.

I find it difficult to shut the computer off and would rather leave it on all day long so that I can sit down behind it at every opportunity. Of course, when given a choice between cleaning the bathroom or reading blogs, I read blogs. If the computer were turned off, I would not sit down as quickly to do that. There would be a little bit of a hindrance and that would be just enough to keep me from sitting down behind it. Some small bit of common sense would prevent me from turning it on.

The truth is that I have that schedule to stick to and that I avoid it like the plague. I never look at it, preferring to go about things in a half assed way and letting them get out of hand and having to fix them all at once in one fell swoop. I could make my life so much easier if I stuck to the schedule, but I am one for instant gratification and want to do all the fun things immediately. Never mind that I have to pay a price for it somewhere down the line.

And I will tell you something. Very often I end up being stressed out from sitting behind the computer so much. It’s because it is a compulsion and almost against my free will. I sit behind it past the point of enjoyment and stubbornly keep going when I should have turned it off already and gone and done something else. That’s how addicted I can be. So all in all it’s a very dubious love affair. It’s a dysfunctional relationship.

I like it better when I go through periods when the computer doesn’t have the upper hand. When I am in control of when I turn it on. I just don’t seem to be in a period like that right now. Somehow I have to fix that.

In the meantime, it’s still raining and I let the dog out on the patio, but he was not very interested in being out there. It’s supposed to stop raining this afternoon, but I doubt we’ll be able to wait that long.

Lest you think I’m heartless for not dwelling on the anniversary of my mother’s death, I have my reasons for that, but they are too intricate to explain here and some of you will already know them.

I have to get dressed and find an umbrella.

Ciao…

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