Friday 3 August 2012

It's time to move on.

I have been smoking more or less every day for the last 20years.

God that is a scary thought.

 

In 2003, I had a really big scare and was forced to quit cigarettes immediately - cold turkey. I did not smoke at all for a year and a half and then bit by bit I started again. Every day of those 18 months I pined for a cigarette. I remember it being a real struggle. EVERY DAY.

 

A few years later my brother got married in the US and I was adamant that I didn't want to travel to the states as a smokers because I know how difficult they are for this kind of thing.

This time, I saw a doctor and took Zyban, medication that helps you stop initially by removing the pleasure and actually it makes you not want to smoke. You take it two weeks before you want to stop. I did this and then a few days before my chosen date, I was in the car on the way to work and my cigarette tasted vile and that was it.

It worked pretty well but I remember having really bad nightmares and bad sleeping patterns while taking the meds.

5 months after, I found myself working at a congress in Barcelona and I was having a bad day... bang!

 

I truly believe that as I hadn't really decided to quit, it was only a matter of time before I would start again. Stupid really.

 

Since then, I haven't really tried to stop as I believe that it needs to click in your mind for any attempt to work and 7 years later, I'm still waiting for the click. HMMM.

But now, there are a few reasons why I'm deciding to stop once again.

I'm about to turn 35.

I'm getting married at the end of the year and I really don't want to be wearing a white dress and having to nip out for a quick smoke during the reception.

I will be spending an obscene number of hours in planes at the end of the year and don't want to be stressed during the whole time.

I'm actually a bit bored of smoking.

 

Notice how none of these reasons are the main ones that smokers always think should make any smoker stop immediately:

 

I can't walk up a flight of stairs without being out of breath - let alone have a jog

It makes me stink

It makes me antisocial

It's expensive

It's really not good especially for me.

Even if I think it calms me, actually it does the opposite

It will eventually kill me.

 

As any smoker knows, there are a million reasons to stop smoking, so many in fact that it's a wonder why anyone smokes at all.

And yet...

 

No real mission in this and possible following posts, just that I've just signed up to an Allen Carr course and I'm terrified. I thought writing might help.

We'll see.