Cognitive Quit Smoking

Having been diverted by Ping-ing in the (my) prior post,
now I can Pong, which is my main purpose in life here. . .
I smoked a cigarette at about 8:15pm Wednesday evening.
This means I went something like 81.5 hours without
smoking. Wow! A major accomplishment for me.
In a prior post, I was rather adamant about not going cold
turkey. Yet, for some strange reason, that’s exactly
what I did. I’ve no philosophical qualms about the use
of NRT. Planned on using it, was dead-set on using it -
yet didn’t. Go figure.
The physical part wasn’t so bad. At least I don’t
remember it being so bad, most of the past 3+ days
being a blur.
The thing was, I couldn’t think. I felt like I was
perpetually stuck between two thoughts. Not two

particular thoughts, just stuck between thoughts.
I wanted to throw off the shackles, to be able to think
again, to feel thoughts moving about in my head, to be
able to express myself in speech and writing. I got
exasperated and frustrated feeling like a troglodyte.
I couldn’t even post a simple, “Having trouble.”
I don’t feel bad about smoking again. And I’m glad I don’t.
Remorse, regret, guilt, etc., isn’t going to be helpful in
regrouping and figuring how to deal with this obstacle when
I come up against it again. I wasn’t prepared for it then,
and I’m not sure how to prepare for it now.
I’m transcribing what I wrote by hand earlier. But that is
page after page after page, and rather than bore everyone
to tears, I’ll skip all the nonsense and get to the point.
Is what I was experiencing what people here call brain fog?
And if so, is there something I can do to at least convey
to an unsuspecting world the illusion that I’m a normal,
functioning human being?
My wife would talk to me, and I couldn’t say anything. I
was capable of tilting my head up or down, or moving it
slowly back and forth. But utter words, I could not. The
words seemed stuck in the cyberspace of my mind, and nothing
I could do would move them from thought to speech. She’d say
something, I wouldn’t. She’d look at me, and I knew it was
hopeless. I couldn’t speak! She’d still look at me wondering
what was wrong, and then all I could do was think, “Well, if
you can’t hear what I’m thinking, then don’t bug me.” And I’d
walk away.
It was very frustrating. But it wasn’t like this just with
her. I couldn’t talk to anyone. A guy in an SUV stopped
to ask me if I knew how to get to Myrtle Avenue. I nodded
yes and kept going. Sheesh.
But the frustration was purely mental. Physically I felt
just fine, extremely calm and serene.
Maybe it’s nothing more than this:
I read somewhere that dopamine has been found to play an
important role in the use of working memory. I read
somewhere else that smoking/nicotine somehow mimics
dopamine, causing the brain to say, in effect, “Oh! Too
much dopamine!” and the brain goes into downsize mode,
reducing its production of dopamine. So when the
smoking/nicotine stops, the brain finds itself with a
dopamine deficiency, ’cause it takes a while for the
brain to realize it has to step up its production of
dopamine to normal levels, and it takes a while for the
increased production to take effect. In the meanwhile,
there’s a deficiency of dopamine, and so, I’m guessing
here, working memory doesn’t.
If this is the case, then the only problem is that I was
impatient, and the solution would (seem to) be to at least
pretend I was enjoying being a honorary troglodyte, knowing
that this title will soon be stripped away.
. . . Okay, I see it. A wascally wabbit suggested I wonce
again we-wead Weighing Widgets. As a loyal emplowee of
Whichway Widget Works, I get to entertain all the other
emplowees by wearing my troglodyte suit (sigh) while
Wendy works with Warren.
See that? The answers are there, if I take the time to
search ‘em out.
So, back to being a troglodyte.
Bye,
Trog

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 1st, 2005 at 2:57 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.