If You Thought I Was Ornery Before...

You should have been around for the past month while I quit smoking after forty plus years, cold turkey.

I turned 55 years old the day before yesterday and I was smoking cigarettes and drinking straight whiskey when I was 10.

That would be 1970 for those with their socks on.

The first week was horrible. I snagged a couple of bags of hard candy and stuck them in every pocket available basically.

I eat constantly now and there is a popcorn maker at work I raid several times a day when I am there.

I have eaten more fucking popcorn in the last three weeks than I have in the last ten years.

Peanuts, candy, gimme that, anything to keep my hands and mouth busy.

Two weeks into it was like I had just quit.
I came to the conclusion that to do this like I did, you have to accept the fact that you are going to be a miserable sonofabitch for two weeks, minimum.

It's like having the flu and going to the doctor.
He will offer to give you something to take for two weeks and then you will feel better or you can just ride it out for two weeks and then you will feel better.

Three weeks in and it started easing up considerably but the cravings would still come up and grab you by the front of the shirt once in a while.

I really started noticing that I could smell things I couldn't before, especially other people who smoke and foods.
Then my taste buds started waking up and I could taste things in my food I never could before.
That is way cool.

I also finally noticed I was breathing easier.
This is big.

This is one of the reasons I quit, I was getting winded way too easily.

I am never going to have a lot of stamina again but I won't be getting worse like I noticed I was.
That is already improving a great deal too after a month.

I am breathing more deeply when I sleep and not wheezing when exerting myself at work.

Trust me when I say I work hard too.
I am up and down stairs all the time, climbing all over equipment like a fucking monkey and hauling shit around without the benefit of wheels way too often for my taste.Everything where I work is heavy, even the wrenches.
When we move things, it is with a thirty ton overhead crane. That should give you some idea.

I'm still as skinny as a rail too.

It will take several thousand calories to put a pound or two on my narrow ass, that' just the way it is.
I was born skinny and I am going to die looking like a bag full of bones.

Any weight I do gain wants to go directly to my belly which just makes the fact that I have no ass even more apparent.

After I quit drinking a couple of years ago I even lost weight, there are a ton of calories in whiskey and beer.

I lost almost all of my beer belly and no joke, have had to punch five fucking holes in my leather belt since then.

So, no smoke, no drink,still married, getting old, yeah I am still as ornery as fuck, just ask those poor sonsabitches I work with.
They tell me I have gotten worse.

That works for me.