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Old 03-20-2011, 09:35 AM
 
137 posts, read 623,844 times
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Feeling psychotic, angry, irritable. Suggestions as to how to curb these side effects. Does more sleep help ? I feel like I just want quiet all the time, but it is impossible with three children.
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Old 03-20-2011, 10:46 PM
 
Location: Brawndo-Thirst-Mutilator-Nation
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Quote:
Originally Posted by grubbyhubby View Post
Feeling psychotic, angry, irritable. Suggestions as to how to curb these side effects. Does more sleep help ? I feel like I just want quiet all the time, but it is impossible with three children.

Are you going cold turkey???? If you are I advise you to reconsider, there are many OTC and Prescription medications that will ease the process of smoking withdrawl, best to use them instead of making the process more tough than it has to be. Nicotine is a powerful drug, especially working on the Central Nervous System, havoc during withdrawl is to be expected.
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Old 03-21-2011, 08:30 AM
 
Location: Hell
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I quit cold turkey in September. Cold turkey is tough but it's the best way to stay quit. Other stuff just keeps you in a perpetual state of withdrawl.

Anyway, I wanted quiet all the time too. I still do to an extent... My suggestion is to take up some type of exercise. I had an exercise bike that I never used until quitting. Once I quit I got on that thing and sweated out/worked out all my anger and aggression. I also spent that time ALONE...45 minutes of peace. The rule was and still is that if Mommy is on the bike, don't talk to her. If you have a basement, even better. Retreat down there and work out/decompress. Then, take a long shower. It's easier to rejoin the chos of family after giving yourself some alone time.

Hope that helps. Good luck!
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Old 03-21-2011, 08:41 AM
Status: "Mistress of finance and foods." (set 18 days ago)
 
Location: Coastal Georgia
50,010 posts, read 63,335,877 times
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Hang in there, and don't use your mood swings as an excuse to revert..."I was going to quit, but I was being too mean to my kids...yada yada".
You are probably over the hump now, so stay with it.
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Old 03-21-2011, 09:23 AM
 
137 posts, read 623,844 times
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Yes, going cold turkey. Better today. It has been just over a week. I'm finding my sleep patterns are changing and I need more than before. Decided on cold turkey after having tried everything else... never stuck. Just turned 40 , have been smoking since 15, so it's saying goodbye to my best/worst friend.
Some of the rage, I believe is an emotional response to grieving the loss.
Thanks for the input.
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Old 03-21-2011, 08:29 PM
 
Location: Brawndo-Thirst-Mutilator-Nation
22,573 posts, read 24,376,202 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by grubbyhubby View Post
Yes, going cold turkey. Better today. It has been just over a week. I'm finding my sleep patterns are changing and I need more than before. Decided on cold turkey after having tried everything else... never stuck. Just turned 40 , have been smoking since 15, so it's saying goodbye to my best/worst friend.
Some of the rage, I believe is an emotional response to grieving the loss.
Thanks for the input.
Well, I will tell you my experience with a slightly similar drug. I quit drinking all caffeine for over a year (why......uh, who knows). I got over the obvious withdrawal symptoms after about 2 weeks, it was tough but I did it. The problem is for the next year of no caffeine I felt both angry and like something was missing from my life (guess what???). Maybe once you are hooked it changes your brain permanently??

But everyone is different, you will probably do great, good luck.
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Old 05-14-2014, 06:16 AM
 
1 posts, read 4,192 times
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Quote:
Feeling psychotic, angry, irritable.

Before you read the rest I figured what the problem is so I will just leave that here maybe it helps someone with the same issue.


Sorry to necro this thread, I found it with google. Basically I got the same problem, and the focus is on psychotic as in schizophrenic psychosis. I am 5 weeks into withdrawal and I did really a lot of exercise and weight lifting from day 0 on, pretty consistently until 1 week ago. That helped a great deal emotionally speaking ... but then I feel like it only delayed the real adjustment, as if the hormones that are released by heavy exercise are partly like a substitute drug (there are even studies about weight lifting upping neurotransmitter levels in males... somewhat similar to some antidepressants).

All the time I felt cognitively slower, by a great deal, but it is seemingly getting better gradually. Though it feels like my brain/psyche is overcompensating the lack of stimulation from the substances in tobacco (which are mostly MAOI & nicotine) with anxiety and anger and psychosis-alike thinking ... in order to adjust by using endogenous/psychological (rather than just chemical) means. To elaborate on that in a simplified manner: What has been the 'hit' from a cigarette before that helped me to do things like cleaning and working and starting new tasks is now being afraid to starve to death this month, or that really terrible things are said about me at work so I have to show up there or that I am a disgusting ugly creature if I don't clean my flat now ... those are all triggers, like smoking, emotional motivation ... which are naturally needed to do stuff but how do they need to be so extreme and why do they keep getting worse and more extreme until they are impossible to bear with or impossible to distinguish from some sane/normal/objective viewpoint? I smoked for 10 years, maybe it equally takes 10 years to reverse? Ah, and worst of all I am not in control of those triggers, when I was still smoking I actually was in control of them: 1. I saw things a certain way automatically, 2. and then I rationally thought about it, 3. and then I did it how it made most sense and how I was most capable to do it. But now it is like #1. works at 500% and #2. works at 10% and is overpowered by 1. and no matter how hard I try I can't get it to work as well anymore, hence #3. becomes extremely prone to error ...

Also I feel less capable of making proper decisions and I am not sure what is real and what is anxiety-imagined anymore. My perception is more 'intense' but not in a good way but in an emotionally exaggerated, out-of-place and focused-on-the-wrong-details kind of way.

For example, 2 days ago I got so angry (whereas angry is meant more as emotionally disturbed and affected by feelings of injustice) at the broadcasting laws in my area that I wrote a very very vivid and insistent letter to the authorities .. one which probably could be held legally against me (insult is criminal law here) if someone wanted to. It is exactly the kind of cognitive problem I have noticed since I quit smoking: 1. My feelings and my perception about things is just exaggerated, in a negative direction - 2. I fail to naturally comprehend the full extents of my actions, that is, the 'distance of though' or distance of prediction capability is considerably lower (which is very likely because everything is less accurate and somewhat distorted now - hence fuzzy results) - and - 3. I can't ascertain where exactly my perception is distorted (is it either that I only perceive the letter I wrote as so extreme that I could receive very-dangerous-to-my-health criminal punishment thus my current perception is at fault, or was my past perception at fault when I wrote the letter and did pay less attention to the inaccuracies hence it really is as extreme that I can be punished for it).

Or ... take this post for example it is somewhat excessively long and probably hard to comprehend for you because I am talking about things which I perceive, which I perceive maybe in a non-psychotic way, but which cannot be properly put into words by commonly comprehensible conventions ... but I do it anyway, because I feel the pressing urgency to express what I think to be the case - which is just anxiety. But I can't know if it is just anxiety or if it is real schizophrenic psychosis or something .. or both! I just don't know for sure! Also I am super-hasty and not very mentally focused, at least not on the things I should be focused on.

Is it just anxiety, schizophrenic psychosis or am I looking for a reason to start smoking again because of addiction? OR IT COULD BE ALL POSSIBILITIES AT ONCE. OR IT COULD BE THAT I QUIT SMOKING BECAUSE I AM BECOMING GRADUALLY PSYCHOTIC.

I mean I don't smoke or take substitutes since 5 weeks and it has kind of worked well so far and yes I was afraid, yes I felt frustrated, yes it wasn't pleasant but it worked! I managed to go through it, I was confident ...


But now .. after all that time where things get better it also just feels like it ripped open a rift of chaos that keeps overwhelming me from another frontier. I also have a life-long phobia of not being able to concentrate and not being able to think rationally ... and both seem to be truly happening at the time... which is why I never did quit smoking as long as it didn't have any health drawbacks...


Anyway, anyone has thoughts on this?

EDIT: Yet I keep on saying more crazy stuff that likely no one reads ...

What I also noticed is that for the last 5 weeks I have had trouble to get my digestion going, you know what I mean, the first 3-5 days I even got cramps and couldn't take a dump at all in the morning like usual (even though I drink very strong coffee). But now ... since I really got the feeling that my withdrawal-tiredness/exhaustion, exercise sleepiness and lack of concentration is improving the digestion also gets faster - even too fast so that it is twice a day now sometimes and not as controlled as before. I mention it because the change is rather abrupt but so much delayed. As if something biological was going on with me additionally that doesn't make much sense. Like diabetes... which I also got anxiety about. But I am not excessively thirsty at all that breaks the logic to that.

Sorry, I just never have felt so nuts and insecure in my life in a drug withdrawal, more than 4 weeks into that is. Especially not in this manner it is really out of place. I mean I have done some extreme withdrawals but there you could, so to speak or even literally, see by the shaking of your fingers how much you were truly insane and had a 'growing problem' and how much it was just withdrawal which will just go away. Day 1 gets better, day 2 gets better, week 3 is maybe worse than week 1.... and in amphetamine withdrawal you get anxiety plus panic attacks like I just had one... even 3 month after and in rare cases even longer. WHICH I FREAKING FORGOT ABOUT! But I guess what is really confusing about tobacco withdrawal is that it is just so much less extreme and more subtle - so subtle you can't even tell it apart.

Last edited by c01v1p4q; 05-14-2014 at 07:25 AM..
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Old 05-14-2014, 08:48 AM
 
4,761 posts, read 14,218,590 times
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Good for you for quitting! You will save a fortune and it is well worth it.

And yes psychotic, nuts, stark raving mad, etc. would be good definitions of how I felt when I quit smoking!

Anyway just explain to people and the kids that you quit smoking, you might be VERY nasty to them, but it is not their fault - just bear with it. You will get back to being nice again in a short time.

Tell people they may want to stay away from you for a week or two! (Kids would be best to hide in their rooms, play outside, or go to a friends house! )
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Old 05-14-2014, 01:01 PM
 
Location: FROM Dixie, but IN SoCal
3,484 posts, read 6,484,783 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by grubbyhubby View Post
Yes, going cold turkey. Better today. It has been just over a week. I'm finding my sleep patterns are changing and I need more than before. Decided on cold turkey after having tried everything else... never stuck. Just turned 40 , have been smoking since 15, so it's saying goodbye to my best/worst friend.
Some of the rage, I believe is an emotional response to grieving the loss.
Thanks for the input.
An astute observation. I started smoking when I was 15, and finally managed to quit at age 59. It took SIX attempts, and I wound up using the gum to mitigate the worst of the withdrawal symptoms.

There is one prescription drug that really seems to help many people. The generic name is buproprion, and the brand name is Wellbutrin. If your symptoms continue, consider talking with your physician about it. It does NOT replace the nicotine, so it does not prolong the withdrawal.

Hang in there, friend! The road is long and winding, and extremely bumpy, but the destination is worth it!

-- Nighteyes
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Old 05-16-2014, 05:47 PM
 
5,696 posts, read 6,186,357 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by grubbyhubby View Post
Feeling psychotic, angry, irritable. Suggestions as to how to curb these side effects. Does more sleep help ? I feel like I just want quiet all the time, but it is impossible with three children.



get some help but seriously withdrawals from nicotine are worse than from heroin
when I quit several years ago I prayed a lot, I happen to believe in prayer but I also drank a ton of water, I ate hard candy and I tried not to stay focused on every little feeling
it is hard to quit but it only lasts a few weeks it has ben about 13 years and I never even think about it go to your doctor or try the e cigarettes
you can do it
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