It has been two weeks and three days since my last cigarette. Prolonged periods of chest pains and sore throats got too much and I decided it was time for a change. I also needed to start putting on some weight again after becoming skinny as a rake. However, the persistent chest pains and throat aches have been replaced by even more chest pains and a throat that feels as if I have been eating razor blades.

I’m not sure what has happened. The sudden lack of nicotine in my body has actually made me feel ill. It could be coincidental. I have had a cold, of sorts, this week, but even before the cold the soar throat was there and had been so for two weeks. Every morning I wake up and have to drink about a gallon of water before I can even talk.

Perhaps my body is adjusting back to normal. Apparently the nicotine was all out of my system after six days, which means everything now is psychological. There have been many tests, particularly on raucous nights out with friends and when my girlfriend smokes in my room. These tests are there for a reason, though, and they challenge my will power. Thus far things have been a success, although I do want a cigarette most of the time. What I have noticed is that most of time this desire to smoke comes through suggestion.

At times of boredom I often think ‘I have nothing to do, I should smoke.’ When I drink I feel as if there is something missing. When I see other people smoking I want to join in with the fun. Similarly, when I feel nervous or stressed or insecure my initial thought is to buy cigarettes. I’m not sure why I have been able to stop smoking after abysmally failing to do so many times before.

I also decided to stop drinking this week. I went to Café De Moc on Tuesday and drank one bottle of water, one pint of milk and two bottles of coke. That was it. I felt very level-headed and I didn’t spend any money but everything seemed a little more boring than normal. Last night was the Timo Maas party at Astra. I headed down to Jazzit to meet John and Will and couldn’t resist the temptation to drink a well-made Cuba Libre, especially as I didn’t have to pay for it. I’m a sucker for rum and cokes. A slice of lime rubbed around the rim of the glass gives the drink an incredible bite and makes it complete.

The night could have descended into drunken tomfoolery but it didn’t. I largely resisted the temptation to get drunk, even though the music was top notch. Could this be a new me? I don’t think so, but I am acutely aware that I need to be saving money and eating more.

Nakadia was also there at Astra. She gave me a CD that I am about to listen to. She’s a sweet girl. I hope things go well for her, but I don’t believe she is quite the superstar that she thinks she is just yet.

Onto other health matters, I have self-diagnosed myself as suffering from either silent migraines or ocular migraines, thanks to this website. I have suffered from this sort of migraine for years but never really understood what it was. It’s always the same: I feel a little fuzzy in the head and then my vision will become completely blurred in both eyes for around an hour. It’s frustrating, especially if it happens at work as I lose the ability to do anything that really requires my eyesight.

Once the migraine retreats I am left feeling somewhat confused and a little sick. It doesn’t appear to be problematic in terms of any sort of serious risk to my health though. I guess it’s just one of those things I have to accept, which I have for years already, but now I know that it has a name.

More seriously, I’m going deaf as well as blind. This is a real problem for me. I used to have bad hearing when I was younger, and for as long as I can remember I have had a ringing in my eyes. I’m used to it because I have had it all my life. However, when I was 15 or 16, and I began to go to nightclubs, I made my hearing irreparably worse by spending large periods of time dancing next to speakers. I used to wear ear plugs in clubs but then it became difficult to judge how loud I was speaking and I became quite paranoid about this as sometimes I would be shouting when it was really quiet, or else I would be whispering so nobody could hear what I was saying.

What I need are some of those electric ear plugs that can be molded to your ears, but they are expensive and I’m yet to find anywhere in Thailand where I can buy them. They are used by a number of DJs and are very effective.

What it comes down to in the mean time is that I find it very hard to hear what people are saying almost all of the time. It’s even worse in nightclubs. Often I have no idea what people are talking about and so my replies to what is being said are usually way off topic. I try and avoid conversation in busy clubs because it doesn’t get me very far. Even without music, though, it’s difficult for me to really gauge what is being said and often it takes a slight pause while I calculate the sounds I am hearing before I can understand the sounds as words. Sometimes it takes a few minutes before I realize what someone has said.

I guess it could be worse.