Kicking the Habit

I've decided that I can no longer live with my fingernails in their current state. I have been a chronic nail biter for as long as I can remember. My father has been trying for more than 20 years to get me to stop biting my fingernails. It's a disgusting habit on par with, or worse than, nose picking and smoking.

I decided last weekend that I would stop biting my nails. I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe I'm growing more vain, maybe I need to reduce the number of vices in my life, maybe I'm just sick and tired of looking at them. I paused for a moment while typing last week and they turned my stomach. They were jagged, rough, bloodied, and gross. I'm 30 years old for God's sake!

Last Sunday, I went to the nail polish section of the pharmacy. I felt quite foolish scanning the bottles trying to get exactly what I was looking for. I ended up purchasing a bottle of Sally Hansen brand Nail Biter. It's a clear liquid that you brush onto the nails, cuticles, and fingertips. Its active ingredient is sucrose octa acetate and it tastes terrible, but smells vaguely like bananas.

This is one of the hardest things that I've ever had to do. Forget about starting a small business, forget about moving across the country, forget about giving up all forms of sugar for eight months. It's awful. Every waking moment I am thinking about my nails and wanting to gnaw them down to the quick. My fingers feel strange and unusual to me. It's the same feeling you get when you can just feel an ingrown hair coming, or that you have a splinter in your skin; something just isn't right.

I haven't bitten my nails in over one week, but am on the verge of going mad. I know how people feel when they are trying to stop smoking or kick a drug addiction. The light at the end seems so far away, and all I really want is to give up.

They are, however, coming along nicely. There is white at the ends and even though they are still quite jagged I have been very disciplined and have resisted all temptation. When I'm really struggling, I been fiddling with a little plastic grape that I plucked off of a bowl of artificial fruit. It makes a nice suction cup, and occasionally I get a tiny little fart sound from it. It's great fun, but I'm not sure if that is any better or worse than the nail biting. All that matters right now is that it keeps my hands busy during this torture.