Not Hot Smoke (Ciggy Puffs, Fuck Off!!!) 2007 Full Body Tour

So for those of you who did not know, today is day 3 of my indef­i­nite “Not Hot Smoke (Ciggy Puffs, Fuck Off!!!) 2007 Full Body Tour”. I’ve thrown in the damp stinky towel of cig­a­rettes. And I didn’t do it for Lent, I didn’t do it for Jesus, I didn’t do it for my Mom, I’m doing it for myself. There are some obvi­ous rea­sons and some not-so-obvious rea­sons for my sched­uled deci­sion and I’d like to tell you some details.

First of all, Brother Caleb kicked me down with some infor­ma­tion about the Georgia Tobacco Quit Line (1–800-NO-BUTTS) which is a government-run pro­gram that sets you up with quit­ting plan (mostly a date), a coun­selor (not annoy­ing at all, in fact, mine was very com­fort­ing to talk to and kept it real), and pro­vides healthy men­tal and phys­i­cal alter­na­tives (breath­ing exer­cises, bev­er­age switches, etc.) which means…that’s right: free patches or gum — and it’s open to peo­ple from every state, they’ll set you up with the right per­son. The GTQL has been around for three years or so and they’ve helped 35,000 or so peo­ple with their addic­tions. ANYWAY…the patches are work­ing pretty well and, when I chose July 1st for my quit date in early June, I decided to space them out since I only got one box of Step One Nicotine Tranasdermal System Patches (14 patches at 21mg each — that’s a lot of nicotine=1 1/2 packs of Parliament Lights).¹ They keep a sort of “deep buzz” going all through­out the day and give your tongue a parched sense that makes water taste like gold.

Secondly, my friend (and, loosely termed, “boss” at Marriage) Curtis gave me some Nature’s Plus Tea Tree Toothpicks that not only pack a pow­er­ful punch but also help with keep­ing my hands busy dur­ing those tough crav­ings. Helps with the onion breath, too!²

And finally, as many of you know I have type 2 dia­betes which, with it’s proven links to high-risk heart dis­ease and stoke, puts me in a place where with the build up of “fatty mate­ri­als” in the lin­ing of my blood cells is akin to me already hav­ing had a heart attack (more). I don’t need no tar clog­ging up my flow, so obvi­ously it’s not a good place for a smoker to be in.

I’m really not try­ing to advo­cate quit­ting (even though the tooth­picks are nice treat for even the most smoke­less per­son), I am just ready to stop. If you have thought about quit­ting, def­i­nitely give it some seri­ous thought and pick the right time — that’s very key. I wouldn’t rec­om­mend quit­ting on an impul­sive decision.

Alright, ’nuff about all that, time for breakfast.

Love,
Jordan

_{1. Right on the box, it clearly states that “if you have vivid dreams, you may remove the patch at bed­time and apply a new one in the morn­ing”. Well, fuck­ing hell! Bedtime is when I’m most prone to light­en­ing up cig and so I’ve been putting on new ones before I go to bed. Thus, I have been expe­ri­enc­ing some incred­i­ble dreams! Such as a) nar­rowly divert­ing the explo­sion that an 80-year-old decrepit Jack Nicholson and I set up in a 5-star hotel ele­va­tor shaft where appar­ently Princess Diana was stay­ing, and b) not only play­ing Futsal with the Uncle Joey, Uncle Jesse, and Danny Tanner from Full House but rock­ing the goalie posi­tion as well with one assist! Seriously, these dreams are like incred­i­bly lucid, multi-sensory, technicolor-type-of-LSD-trippin’-shit. They are actu­ally turn­ing into one of the most inter­est­ing “pluses” of quitting.}

2. I had ini­tially bought a large amount of cin­na­mon sticks, before hear­ing about the tooth­picks, for the same “oral fix­a­tion” rea­son. Cinnamon is a nat­ural neu­tral­izer of blood sug­ars and the sticks are pretty intox­i­cat­ing after a cou­ple of min­utes when some of that saliva gets soaked in and you get real juicy squirts. On a side-sided note, Isucked my thumb when I was a lit­tle to middle-aged kid and have be enticed by sim­i­lar actions ever since. When I was six or seven the thumb-sucking got so bad my front teeth were start­ing to come in wrong and my mother had to put a dis­gust­ing, ran­cid nail-polish on my thumb to get me to quit.