I quit quitting!

As I have mentioned a little earlier, for more than 15 years now I was a user of the Swedish snuff tobacco called "snus". Not only was I a user, I was a pretty heavy user and the volume of nicotine I put into my body was probably equivalent to that of a "one pack a day" smoker. I will in no way try to claim that this snus is good for the body, but since the nicotine is directly adsorbed into the bloodstream through the gums and not through inhaling smoke, it does have the benefit compared to smoking to not subject the body to the nasty by-products of smoking such as tar.

However, a health problem a few months ago, forced me to see the doctor and the verdict was pretty harsh. The doctor told me that to get rid of my problem, I needed to quit the nicotine since it had a very clearly proven connection to my problem. With some active encouragement from Mrs. Sunshine-Salaryman who saw an opening to get rid of a habit she dislikes, I did decide to kick the habit. I did take my time quitting, gradually cutting down on the dose week by week until, after around 3 months, I had completely kicked the habit. Probably due to the gradual reduction in nicotine I didn't really have any big difficulties in this.

I did not expect miracles, but I had read some stuff about people stating how their everyday health had been positively affected by quitting nicotine, in terms of having more energy, sleeping better and things like that, so I did have some expectations on feeling better. The original cause for quitting did heal but other physical effects were mostly of the negative nature; I felt like I had less energy, I was more sleepy and generally things were more boring without snus in my life. Ok, the original problem did heal completely with no risk of returning, that much I need to concede and I do save considerable amounts of money since importing the stuff started to cost quite a lot of money after the Japanese authorities realized that they should tax it… But even several months after quitting, when the nicotine dependence should be well out of the system, I did not really feel any different, just more tired and dull.

So, I made my decision, I quit quitting! I’m getting right back at it where I left off. Ok, the volume I am restarting the habit at is extremely small, but still.