The Unscrupulous Curse of the L7's

And just like that your Hustleman is back in the building. Peace to the Fam out there, I’m a little amped; it is Super Bowl Sunday you know! Can’t say I’m leaning toward any particular side, we have two black coaches and since there was never ever never a black coach in the Super Bowl, to have two at one time is history in itself.

Well I finally decided to put the stomp on a bad habit of mine which is smoking. Call them what you will, squares, cigarettes, cancer sticks or L7’s (put the letter L and the number 7 together side by side and they make a square)… I figured it’s time to stop. Now this is NOT an easy thing. To anyone who’s ever quit cold-turkey you have my deepest respects, no doubt. Currently I’ve cut my intake in half. A was a-pack-a-dayer; about 20 cigarettes a day, so now I’m down to 10. And although that doesn’t seem like a lot, cutting 70 cigarettes out of my habit per week has had some ill effects on me.

When you do the research on quitting you find that there will be some symptoms that are just a natural physical and psychological reaction to your body weaning itself off of nicotine (and whatever the hell else they put in cigarettes). Some of the most common symptoms are as follows:
> Irritability
> Shortness of breath
> Shakiness of the hands
> Difficulty sleeping well
> Weight gain (mostly from an increase in appetite)
> Mild depression
> And an all around shitty attitude

Sounds like fun doesn’t it?

So throwing caution to the wind and being inspired by a couple of people around me who have successfully stopped smoking I decided it was time to go ahead and do that for myself. After all, I thought, quitting can’t be THAT bad. Well… I was wrong.

Let’s look at the side effects of the symptoms I just listed above:
1) Irritability – Oh yes! I had (and still have) this one. I mean the littlest and slightest things get on my last damn nerve. I’m serious! Now I’m normally a laid back type dude. I go with the flow until I realize it’s time to move, then I move. But trying to run a business with a bad attitude is just not the business, feel me? Customers who already work my nerves have worked it like times 4. My patience is thin as tissue paper and I swear I was about to slap this Chinese dude yesterday for laughing at me when I was trying to explain what I wanted in my food order. Real talk. Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING gets on my last damn nerves. Even the phone ringing… “WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME and WHAT do you want!” But seriously, I light up a cigarette and things within me settle down; life is good again. Cigarettes are a drug, fuck what “they” say. Moving on…

2) Shortness of Breath and Shakiness of the Hands – Haven’t really experienced these yet, but then again I haven’t completely stopped smoking. I will say this though, it has been harder to concentrate lately.

3) Difficulty Sleeping – A definite yes on this one. I haven’t had a real good nights rest in about a week now. Some of that has to do with the load of things on my mind, but even when I’m exhausted it’s still hard to get comfortable and get in a deep sleep. Over the past week this has improved a little bit.

4)Weight Gain – Nothing I’ve noticed as of yet but I’m hungry almost all day, at least I think I am. Now this is a BIG for me because I normally have a snack here and there and have one meal a day. But to know you’re not hungry and have the desire to eat (possibly to have something to do with your hands; to replace not holding a cigarette) can definitely lead to weight gain. All good though, I wouldn’t mind putting on a few more pounds, but I would definitely want to tone those pounds up.

5) Mild Depression – I can’t say I’ve felt depression, but since everything irritates the fuck out of me I can see that also I’m a lot more emotionally reactive than I am normally. When I start crying over one of those emotionally riveting Oprah shows then I’ll let you know.

6) Shitty Attitude – Already have that to some degree so everything checks out in that department. No change there as of yet.

My good friend Mz Nici Nicole got me “The Patch” for Christmas (gee.. thanks Nici... NOT! Jus playin’ LOL) and I was so confident that I wouldn’t need them, but the more these side-effects start to weigh on me the more I realize that I just might. Oh, and gum just makes me WANT to smoke so that’s not really working for me.

To wrap this all up here’s my plan:
For this first month (about 2 weeks into it already) I will smoke half of what I normally smoked. So about 10 cigs a day.

After that for the next 30 days I will be cutting back to no more than 5 squares and finally I will do my best to either kick the habit completely or smoke 2 cigs a day. One in the morning and one at night, these are when my urges are the strongest. Why 30 days at a time you ask? Because it takes about 30-45 days for a human being to form a new habit. So I have to form the new habit of smoking less so that when I stop completely, it won’t be missed that much. For the time being, as long as I keep busy I really don’t think about smoking that much, which is good because I usually keep busy.

Sorry, I can’t do cold-turkey but I feel this plan will work for me. I’ll keep you all updated on my progress.

Peace Fam, thanks for stopping by and pray for a brother! The Hustleman is out…

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