Quiting smoking and dreams…
Well it has become easier to deal with the fact that I'm not a smoker anymore. The physical addiction for cigarettes are mostly gone, or at least it is so easy to deal with it might as well be gone. One thing that has been getting harder though, is the habit side of things. Getting into the car, walking out of the store, drinking at a bar, playing poker. The urge to smoke at those trigger point has been more difficult to deal with lately. On top of that I've been having bizarre dreams of "quit" failure.
In one dream I was with friends, and I had a cigarette. It didn't feel weird or anything. I was smoker and having a cigarette was just a natural part of what I did on a regular basis. I'm not sure if we were talking or what, I just remember standing in a circle with some friends and I suppose talking or something. Then I lifted the cigarette to my mouth and took a drag, and as the smoke went down it simply felt wonderful. For a few seconds I was in heaven. (BTW, I don't remember smoking being that great…just good…maybe) Then it suddenly stuck me that I had quit, and this immense sense of failure and disappointment washed over me. Mentally I was beating myself up because I failed and then it was over.
There were several dreams similar to that one. The scene around them always vague, with the failure to quit being the central point.
Then two nights ago I had a much more distinct dream. I was standing there and this time I was not smoking, and was aware that I was a quitter. I was again with friends similar to the previous dreams. Where I was and who was there was sort of foggy. There was a new "not a cigarette" cigarette. I saw a diagram like cross section of it and it showed how the first two thirds of the cigarette like cylinder was non-tobacco, and the remaining one third was something else, and then of course the filter. It was suppose to allow you to smoke with out the dangers of regular cigarettes. There was some rationalizing with myself as to why this was so great. Then suddenly there I was smoking, inhaling and then exhaling big clouds of smoke, and again it simply felt great to be a smoker again. Not really because of the smoke going in and out of my lungs, simply because of the act of smoking itself. I didn't feel guilty about smoking, and was enjoying myself, and then suddenly I realized that I wasn't smoking one of these new "safe" cigarettes, but was in fact smoking normal run of the mill cigarette. Again the disappointment washed over, and failure reigned.
You would think that this feeling of failure would go away once I woke up, but it didn't. It was just as crushing of a defeat as if I had really smoked. Maybe because I know deep down inside I'm still a slave to cigarettes even after I have stopped smoking. During the first week I had this big head about how I was stronger than cigarettes and it felt great to be winning the battle with the addiction. What I didn't realize was that it wasn't just the battle that I needed to win, there was a whole war that I had failed to see because I was so so focused on the battle with nicotine.
(Oh yea, its been two week, and two days!!!)
