On bad dreams and bad habits...

Once again I decided to quit smoking. This is a battle I have been fighting for nearly a year. Sometimes I do good, and there are other times that I devour cigarettes and want nothing else. As my cravings were becoming less and less I decided to try yet again, this time having a feeling that I was just going to work. Only this time I would take a different approach.

On previous occasions I have chewed the gum and worn the patch, all while continuing to light up. I attempted Gov. Mitch Daniels stop smoking challenge and succeeded for a couple of months. They say that to quit you need something to replace the actions and movements with. That is a hard thing to do in the dead of winter when you are living in a house like mine, (the house alone makes me want to smoke cartons of cigarettes!). But along comes summer, packed with many activities to keep me occupied, and a prescription drug that makes me sicker than anything I could have ever imagined!

Chantix is a pill designed to work on your brain in some way to reduce your cravings and assist you in your quest to quit. Unlike the other stop smoking aides, Chantix contains NO nicotine. This is the reason I chose to go this route, besides the fact that the others had not worked previously. Call me crazy, but the more I think about it, the harder it is for me to fathom using one nicotine product to stop using another. When you talk with your doctor about prescribing the drug, you have to answer TONS of questions about your daily habits, what you eat, how much you smoke, time of day you smoke more, what makes you crave a cigarette, the amount of alcohol you consume in a 24-hour period, and so on. Based on my answers, my doctor put me on a week long dosage of .5mg and after that 2 months worth of 1mg dosage. And then he talked to me about the side effects…

Nausea
Night Terrors (that’s right night terrors, not night mares)
Anxiety
Trouble sleeping
Constipation
Gas
And a whole slew of other’s, the above are just the most common.

Side effects are listed on every pill bottle and package, and I always read them, but I never experience any of the side effects. The bottle says to take with a full glass of water and to avoid drinking alcohol excessively. No problem, I drink water constantly and a couple of drinks on Friday night is hardly excessive. For the first 3 days I felt hardly a side effect. I was a little nauseous, but I had cramps and didn’t think twice about it. I was a little anxious, but my days were being spent painting my house with Jake’s mother so I blamed it on that. It wasn’t until my dosage was upped that the side effects started coming on strong. I had gas so bad I was stinking my little dog, (who is unusually attracted to bad smelling things), out from beneath the covers at night. (I know, TMI!) The nausea was getting so bad that everyone around me was beginning to ask if I were pregnant, my mother even insisting I take a pregnancy test! Finally I learned to take the pill at lunch time so the “morning sickness” goes away and I can lie down in the backseat of the Jimmy and sort of sleep it off during my lunch break. However, the nausea lasts all day long. ALL. DAY. LONG. As far as the alcohol thing goes…I think when they say excessive they mean 3 drinks, as in gulps, of 1 beer. I was sharing one Friday night and after the first 3 drinks I could put down no more and I instantly felt I needed to lie down or blow chunks all over the girl sitting across the room from me. I didn’t barf, and I didn’t lie down. I also have not had another drink since then!

I was concerned about the night terrors at first, especially after hearing some of the stuff that others who have taken the pill have dreamt! Scary! I was nervous to sleep that fist night I took the pill so I made sure to take it on a Friday when I knew I didn’t have to be anywhere important, like work, first thing. For the next 3 nights I slept like always, not remembering any dreams, or night terrors. The fourth night was a different story altogether. I am not even going to touch on what I dreamt about, but it was horrible. I have had only 1 dream in my lifetime that I can remember having such an effect on me in such a terrifying way. I woke up in the wee hours of Monday morning in a cold sweat and crying. In my dream I was crying, and I was crying when I woke up, it was the strangest thing. I had the hardest time getting back to sleep after that. Last night I was afraid to go to sleep. I read until 1230 and then watched TV for another hour before finally deciding to take Excedrin PM. Luckily last night I did alright, but with two months of the treatment ahead, I can only pray that the night terrors don’t frequent my sleep.

I wouldn’t tell Jake any details about what the dream was actually about, just that it scared the hell out of me and that I was afraid to go to sleep. He kept his arm around me until I fell asleep and told me to wake him up if I had anymore bad dreams. That was nice of him, considering if I wanted to wake him up in the night I would have to hire the bands that play in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade! Like I said, last night I didn’t have any troubles, but who can tell what’s in store for the days to come…