I watched a documentary last night on The History Channel about the history of tobacco and its uses. It wasn’t a biased program – anti-smoking Nazi’s, et al – rather, it was truly about the history of tobacco – from the growing of it originally in the Americas by Native Americans for various needs, to the distribution of it across the world, thanks to the Europeans who had the means to ship it back to the mother country and beyond – for personal use as well as financial gain. The hour-long show detailed all kinds of tobacco use – cigars, cigarettes, pipe tobacco, snuff, moist tobacco, and chewing tobacco.

As I sat there and watched, I waited for the anti-smoking rhetoric to being. But it never did. Instead, facts were laid out very matter-of-factly. I debated at first whether to even watch the show, given my state of mind. Yesterday was a bad day for me, as far as nicotine cravings go. It was my fourth day smoke-free, and it was the worst day thus far. The documentary showed frequent images of people smoking cigarettes. I wondered how that would affect me. Would I crave one all the more? I nearly changed the station, but changed my mind. I continued to watch.

And I’m so glad that I did.

Today’s blend of cigarette is not comprised solely of tobacco. It’s only half tobacco – and that half is laced with enticing food flavorings such as chocolate and sugar, to mellow the original tobacco into a pleasing form. The other fifty percent of a cigarette is made up of “recon” – tobacco product remnants swept from the tobacco factory floors, mingled with cigarettes sent back to the factory because their shelf life has expired.

And then there’s the chemicals.

Aside from the few I knew of – tar, ammonia, acetone, and carbon monoxide – I was surprised to find the myriad more: arsenic (rat poison), styrene (think of the things that Big Macs used to be packaged in – those Styrofoam containers), lead, methanol (rocket fuel!), and the one that REALLY gave me the willies -- hydrogen cyanide. That’s the poison they use to kill the bad guys in the gas chambers, folks.

Holy crap! I’m a real hypocrite, yanno? I mean, for the past several years I’ve taken great pains to record what I eat – down to the most miniscule ingredient – recording those findings into FitDay, counting calories and carbohydrates, making sure that I don’t ingest sugar, and thinking very well of myself for doing all of that.

Yet, I ingested arsenic and cyanide on an hourly basis for years. What the Hell was I thinking? How could I think that that was an okay thing to do?

Well, I didn’t think it was okay. In fact, I knew that it wasn’t okay. What had me hooked was the nicotine. In fact, the documentary last night reinforced what my doctor had been telling me since last year. Smoking brings pleasure because it affects the pleasure centers of the brain. What he DIDN’T tell me – and what I found out last night – was that the more I smoked, the more nicotine/pleasure receptors developed in my brain, waiting to be fed, so the more I smoked, the more of those thingies popped up, waiting to be fed, the more I smoked…….

You get the drift. It’s a vicious cycle. Much like overeating. The more you eat, the more you are ABLE to eat, because the more fat cells your body produce, waiting to be filled, the more you eat, yadda, yadda, yadda.

So, I’m a double threat. I’ve been fat since I was a little child, so I have all of these fat cells waiting to be filled. They’ve been filled and then unfilled through weight loss more times than I’m willing to admit. And now that I’ve smoked all of these years, I have all of these nicotine receptors waiting to be filled in my brain.

Holy Jesus weepin’ on the cross. What a fool I’ve been all of these years. I’m gonna quit whining and complaining that I’m craving a cigarette and just suck it up. I did this to myself, so I can just undo it. These cravings will stop eventually – possibly days – possibly months or even years – but, so the Hell what? I can’t go back to mistreating my body. I only have one, and I don’t get another shot at this.

I’ll think about that today when the cravings hit.

I saw the same show. And like you, I thought "what the HELL was I thinking?" I am 15 days smoke free today, and my cravings have subsided substantially. Just from my own personal experience, the first 7-10 days are the hardest. My cravings have gotten smaller and further apart. Keep up the good work, and if you need someone to talk to . . . I'm here for you!

WOW that was so informative. I am going to print an excerpt from your journal to give to a friend. WOW who knew all that stuff. No wonder they are willing to put the hazard information on cig packages now. It doesn't even tell half the story. It is amazing people get hooked so quickly and for so long that they don't even have to advertise anymore.

Keep up the great work on recovering. *Pat on the back*