Quitting Smoking and Other Aggravations

So, I just arrived home, it's 1.03AM and I am actually quite tired. Before I go to bed I usually have a mug of tea and something sweet. This I just realised answers a lot of insomnia problems I'm having lately, amongst other things, but no tea just doesn't feel right!

So to tire out the monkey having a sponge bath inside of my head I decided to do yet ANOTHER blog post. Reading is optional from now onwards.

So as the title mentions, I have recently decided I'm quitting smoking. It has been 5 days of smoke free in my lungs and my plan is to stick with this smokey-free-eeness. Alas, there is a downside to this. You see an addiction needs a distraction, whereas my distractions appear as a new addiction to something else. Now, I'll admit, I have an intoxicating relationship with tea already, but now it's increased 5 billion times fold since I quit smoking. If tea were a person I would be it's Josef Fritzl, I love it unhealthily now ... I wonder if he quit smoking too? (from now on I'm calling tea addiction "Fritzled")

"A Tea Party????"

So along with caffienating myself for 14 hours of my waking day which will without a doubt lead my dad into thinking I'm a diabetic yet AGAIN (oh the summer of 2004, you evil bastard), it's still not enough to divert my dependency of cigarettes. I smoke usually on 3 occasions, either when I'm extremely bored (which is quite often), frustrated (I'll get to that one in a moment) or when I'm drunk (which is quite often).

So boredom usually somehow links to frustration. Sadly the main bout of frustration usually happens around the time I play the Wii. So, this is how it goes.

1. I make a mug of tea and sit down to play the Wii.
2. I pop on the Wii and leave my tea alone for a while, it's still quite hot.
3. I insert my copy of Monster Hunter 3 to play

And there you have it. Monster Hunter 3. The Hitler of the gaming world, the pooh to your hungoverness, the Joey to our sitcoms. Usually what happens during this phase of my day is that I go into blackouts of raging frustration. The game just plain doesn't like the human species (much like my laptop). So after spending an hour thinking I'm achieving something in this game, it comes out of the left field with a big fat "F@&K YOU" which makes you feel like this:

So now I'm pissed, I just wasted an hour of my time playing a video game and achieving nothing. BUT I can't have a cigarette soooooo I go to drink my tea, but it's COLD. Because I wasted an hour of my time, my damn tea has gone cold. My frustration is now slowly beginning to morph into rage at this point, much like the power rangers morph, but way less cool. So I go to the kettle and fill my mug with hot water which spills all over the counter. Shit, that's annoying I better clean it up. I clean it up and then drink a big slug out of my mug. Forgetting there's hot water in it. The noise that comes out of me at this point is probably something not even a Lyre bird could imitate. Let's just call it "unpleasant".


Ok so now I'm quite fuming, but there's a day ahead of me to calm down and relax. Just shower and relax. Phone rings, "hello?", Phone voice "Seán we need you at work", me "ok". So I don't have a day ahead of me anymore, just 5 mins for a cold shower and -5mins to eat.


When I arrive at work I usually have self contained my rage. To workers I appear quiet because I don't want to inflict the anger on them. To customers I most likely appear something like this:





Just dandy, costumers are gone soon enough so they'll most likely forget my horrifying rage, their children will have nightmares however.


So I work away for the few hours wishing I could just have a cigarette but eventually that subsides and so does the anger. It's near the end of my shift, I'm moving a cage happily now knowing I will be gone soon. I roll the cage over my foot due to being distracted by the thought of having a mug of tea. At this point I really thought tea was trying to harm me, physically and mentally. But I just ignored the seemingly severedmytoefrommyfoot pain and just went on till the end.


I break through the doors leaving with my bag on my back. This day which I awoke to with the theme from Knight Rider stuck in my head (usually that's a good sign) had transformed into something of a Michael Bay film, without the explosions (which basically means all the shitty bits).


I need a drink at this point, I have to drink. Luckily for me I have a friend who is usually willing to, or can be made, drink (you know who you are). Actually that last part in brackets can apply to a lot of people (you ALL know who you are...). So we get appropriately shit-faced and then it happens. I buy cigarettes, smoke about 40 when I only bought 20. Wake up with a hangover as raging as I was the day before and regret every single moment of it. The only thing in the end that pulls me through my day is being Fritzled.


That, my friends, is why it is so hard to quit smoking.