My love/hate for Nicorette

I love nicotine because I have no other choice. When you crave something at least once an hour for 22 years, and you consider the fact that it won’t change for as long as you live, you start examining the situation and try your utmost to take the positive outlook. When thinking about it that way it is quite easy to turn nicotine usage into something of a hobby, rather than routine relief of cravings
Nicotine is the perfect drug. It is both a stimulant and a sedative at the same time and one’s perception of the effect depends on one’s mood. I like to call it an interactive drug! Instead of having to obtain fixes from separate substances, I can turn to one substance to provide me with comfort, or a boost, depending on what my psyche requires at the time. Also, it doesn’t impair my abilities like alcohol or other drugs would. It’s just an awesome mood adjuster. It’s also the perfect drug if you are a manufacturer of cigarettes or nicotine gum and other NRT’s. Why? Everyone starts slow enough to not see the warning lights but ends up severely hooked. Despite the good things I take from Nicorette, I must say it’s costing quite a bit.
Since I no longer participate in the smoking of those awful ciggies my nicotine usage has ceased to harm me. Nicotine in the quantities found in Nicorette is supposedly harmless. (Excluding the potent habit-forming properties, of course…) Therefore, as nicotine is the perfect drug, so is Nicorette the perfect delivery system. It is true though that my usage of Nicorette is closer to substance abuse than medicinal usage. I am just a gum junkie.
A part of my massive addiction is left over from my days as a fairly heavy smoker. I realize now what they mean when they call nicotine one of the most addictive drugs on the planet. It seems hard to believe since it is so commonplace. Take into consideration though, that heroin addicts don’t use 20 or 30 times a day, like cigarette smokers! I can testify to the fact that nicotine addiction is extremely powerful, in my case unbeatable. I will WALK through a rainstorm to get to a pharmacy when my supply runs low; I cannot even imagine the horror of running out…
The remaining portion of my dependence stems from my emotional bond with nicotine. This probably originated in the fact that it was a fascination with nicotine and its effects that caused me to start smoking in the first place, not peer-pressure or anything like that. I just had to try it. I was property of the tobacco manufacturers as soon as I inhaled for the first time! In the meantime I have made peace with the fact that I will never again be a person that doesn’t crave nicotine. It doesn’t really bug me that much anymore though. It’s not too bad being hooked on something I probably would have done anyway…
People ask me why I find nicotine use enjoyable, and base this question on the idea that most smokers only smoke because they are hooked and not because they enjoy it. That may be true, but keep in mind that no one starts out smoking 20 cigarettes a day, yet all smokers usually end up as pack-a-day smokers. In order to get so addicted that you need 20 cigarettes a day, you actually have to smoke a lot. At first I never smoked on a regular basis. I used to sneak a quick puff every time one of my parents left the room for a second, leaving a burning cigarette in the ashtray. Not long after that did I actually go and buy a pack of cigarettes. Even then I was still not a regular smoker, and only smoked one cigarette every now and again. My first packet lasted more than a month. The second packet only lasted two weeks though. By then I became aware of ever so slight cravings if I skipped a day. From that moment I guess I was a regular smoker. When I started smoking regularly it was my addiction to 1 cigarette a day that made me smoke at least 1 day, and it was the enjoyment of the second cigarette that made me smoke another one. Quickly I became a 2-a-day smoker. Now I had to smoke 3 and 4 and 5 to bring on the love, the first two just picked me up again. By the time I was 25 I was smoking a pack a day at the bare minimum. 30 Cigarettes was the plateau for me, where the constant nicotine-saturation my brain and nervous system were exposed to kept me on a nice enjoyable level. Tolerance is formed by people using more than their addiction requires them to use, and why do they do it? Because it feels good!!! The physical addiction is hard enough to beat on its own, but the memory of feeling good is what causes this emotional dependence. With Nicorette my magical level seems to be 14 to 16 of the 4mg gums, 10 will just keep the cravings at bay. Who knows, next year this time I will probably be on minimum 15 going to 20 for pleasurable effect. Don’t know, not going to worry about it too much just yet. The strange thing is also that one’s dependence can add certain pleasurable aspects to said nicotine usage. There is NOTHING that feels quite as good as the feeling you get when you relieve a massive craving…
In the world we are living in, there are so many things to worry about: Crime, global warming, terrorism etc. I fail to see why my reliance on a chemical in my chewing gum causes other people so much distress. Sure, clean nicotine has to, on the long run, have some sort of negative effect (even though no-one seems to know what it is yet), but the air pollution I inhale in the streets of JHB causes much more damage. Shouldn’t people rather complain about that?
Also, the provision of products like Nicorette could keep people from smoking cigarettes, and that is a good thing! Anti-nicotine people claim that nicotine addicts society. If you remove the damage caused by cigarettes, why is living in an addicted society a bad thing? The people who would steal or do bad things to satisfy their addiction are usually users of hard and illegal drugs anyway. I’ll vote for free Nicorette!
At the end of the day it is people I cannot rely on, they always find a way to disappoint, but nicotine never lets me down. Satisfaction and relief is never farther away than a piece of chewing gum. My day starts and ends with the fresh taste of mint and the tingling sensation of nicotine passing through my mouth lining and into my blood. The blister packed gum in my bag provides me with feelings of being in control, and the fact that there is more where that comes from gives me comfort and joy. It’s weird, I know…

Logistics

I suppose one of the hardest parts of my dependence on nicotine gum is the maintenence of stock levels in my stash.

In South Africa, you can only buy Nicorette at pharmacies, and they all just keep a couple of packets at a time and replenish as they sell them. So sometimes when I get there after work they only have one or two packets, and if I buy them, they won't have new stock by tomorrow. Then I must go to another pharmacy after work tomorrow and hope that they will have.

One packet, unfortunately only lasts me two days at best. And for me, running out is not an option. I can hardly get through two hours without a decent fix, let alone a day. I haven't run out completely as yet, in the whole three years of my usage, but I have come dangerously close. Everytime I've been able to locate a forgotten couple of pieces somewhere:)

I suppose if I ever do run out I will have no choice but to smoke a cigarette, because come what may, into the bloodstream nicotine MUST go! That is the last thing I want to do though. Ever since I have abstained from smoking I have developed a dislike in the smell and idea of smoking...

So to prevent that, whenever I do shop for Nicorette I shop big. Usually I buy all the 4mg packets available in the store!

Nicorette

This is the first post in my new version of this blog.

It is entirely dedicated to the minty, mood altering goodness Nicorette 4mg's provide me with. Anyone not happy with that please leave.