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Up in Smoke: Day 2--Success! (Sort of)

There's a gnawing in my stomach, as if a string of spikes is gently lodged against my gut. It's this that prevents me from eating; the stomach pains. In fact, a Big Mac Meal is the first thing eaten since waking up yesterday morning. I'm at six cigarettes. Usually by this point, I'd have smoked about 15.
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My nose and eyes began to run [...] Hot and cold flashes hit me as though a furnace door was swinging open and shut. [...]Almost worse than the sickness is the depression that goes with it. [...] After five days I began to feel a little better. After eight days I got the "chucks" and developed a tremendous appetite for cream puffs and macaroons. In ten days the sickness had gone. -Junky by William S. Burroughs

1 PM: I've only had two cigarettes since waking up; that means just less than half a cigarette every hour. Not bad, relatively speaking. If I continue to go at this rate, and somehow fall asleep by midnight, I will have consumed in total just under 4.5 cigarettes today; 22.5 per cent of what I usually smoke per day.

The words of today's news are slightly fuzzy (originally written: "fuzzy slightly"), and I'm beginning to feel the small, swaying pangs in my stomach, as if there's a pendulum hitting the sides of my gut, counting down until that next cigarette.

4 PM: I've had three cigarettes so far, which means I'm already breaking the pattern I set out for myself earlier today. At this rate, if I go to bed at midnight. And while sentences are hard to form, they are getting easier. Furthermore, I haven't seen or spoken to any friends today, which is probably for the best.

8:30PM: Oddly enough, I'm not hungry. In fact, even if I wanted to eat, I wouldn't be able to. There's a gnawing in my stomach, as if a string of spikes is gently lodged against my gut. It's this that prevents me from eating; the stomach pains. In fact, a Big Mac Meal is the first thing eaten since waking up yesterday morning. I'm at six cigarettes. Usually by this point, I'd have smoked about 15, prepping myself to brave the cold to buy another pack in case I go out tonight.

10:30PM: Actually, forget that thing about eating. The moment you get something in your system, it's only a short matter of time until you find yourself eating a bag of Original Munchies Snack Mix, and drinking a litre of buttermilk, while watching an HBO documentary on Bobby Fischer. I rescind my previous comment.

11:30PM: I've smoked eight cigarettes today, 60 per cent less than I usually do. Not bad for a day's work.

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