Hi All,
Feeling really happy with myself and wanted to shout about it.....
I set today (or yesterday 13th October due to the current time) as my quit day and I've done it, a full day without so much has a puff...
COME ON ... DAY TWO YOUR NEXT..... lol
I only found this excellent forum on Tuesday and I've already read through lots and lots of really great and inspiring threads/post.
I think it will help me loads, to write a bit of a diary/blog and hopefully help or encourage others going through the same stage of quitting.
So, a bit of background... I'm 39 male, very handsome, intelligent, loaded and drive a Ferrari with homes in 5 different countries! OK I’ll keep it real… I’m 39 male...... and smoked 20 per day for approx 25 years. Tried a couple of times to quit, previously used patches / inhaler / gum, my best attempt was approx 12 months ago when I actually stopped for around 3 weeks using patches and then for some reason, that I still cannot explain or rationalise I just decided on the spare of the moment to buy 10 ciggs, whilst buying a newspaper and smoked about 3-4 one after the other….
I turned green, felt really ill but started smoking again ?
Anyway moving on to my current situation, following being made redundant earlier this year and still job hunting, I’ve been under pressure from my lovely wife regarding the money I ‘waste and burn’ each week, when money is already really tight.
I’ve got to agree she’s 100% correct….. 1 pack per day x7 = £50 per week / £200 per month…. MADNESS ! So you’ve guessed it, MONEY is my main motivator, I know health is and should be priority, but I’ve been very lucky… so far ? I never suffer from coughs / colds / chesty problems so it’s hard to motivate myself on the health side because I don’t suffer any adverse effects but obviously I’m aware of the hidden and future damage smoking causes, so the health benefits are a bonus I’ll gratefully accept for quitting.
I’ve been coming up with all manners of excuses for delaying my quitting, I’m stressed trying to find a job, I’m bored at home all day, it’s my one little enjoyment in life, I’ll quit next week, next month, blaa blaa blaa. Then approx 2 months ago my best mate, the same best mate who started me smoking when we were kids, randomly announced that he had started taking this wonder drug and suddenly stopped smoking? At first I thought yeah yeah, I’ll give him a week or so …but no…..so far so good, he’s still off the fags and it’s coming up to 3 months for him. I might add that we are like brothers and a ‘tad’ competitive, with anything and everything and can’t allow the other one to ‘out do’ the other, yeah I know…. boys never grow up, but that’s how we’ve always been and will always be….I only started smoking cause he did ? So that was my kick up the back side to stop talking and actually start ‘doing’ something regarding my quit.
So off to see the Dr and Champix tabs at the ready, I started on them approx 3 weeks ago. Going off what my mate Tony had experienced, I was expecting to take the pills for about a week and then suddenly lose all urge and cravings to ever smoke again !
Unfortunately I was disappointed, week one absolutely no effects what so ever, week two the odd ‘sicky’ feeling after taking the pills and every now and then when smoking I felt like they weren’t that great ? The kind of feeling you get at the end of a heavy night of smoking, when you light up and think I don’t really want this fag ?
But I was still smoking 10 ish a day, so they weren’t that bad ! I then went back to see the Dr as instructed towards the end of week two (the pills were running out) and I explained that I hadn’t noticed much difference but I had reduced the amount I was smoking by about half, but I still felt like I ‘wanted’ to smoke ? He gave me a new supply for 1 month (x2 pills per day) and suggested I set a date to quit in week 3 and ‘see how it goes’. I originally set Monday 10th Oct as my quit day, but I only lasted about 4 hours till I ‘fell off the wagon’ However, when I did have a ciggy it wasn’t all that great, so I was annoyed with myself for caving in so easy…. So I decided I needed to get more ‘serious’ and set a new quit day THURS 13TH OCTOBER
I got up this morning, immediately made my mug of routine ‘wake up’ coffee and….. sucked a toffee bon bon ??? My mind was saying ‘hello, it’s ciggy time…. why are you eating toffee bon bons first thing in the morning, you don’t even like sweets’
I’ve got to admit I did ‘want to smoke’ because that’s what I always do with my morning cuppa but I wasn’t ‘craving’ a ciggy. Under normal circumstances if I haven’t had a cig within 10 minutes of waking I morph into some strange and irate nutter, that starts banging around slamming doors and being a general ass !
Surprisingly, I didn’t feel the irate/irritable feelings, just that I hadn’t done ‘something’. The bon bons are just my chosen ‘alternative’ that I can suck or chew when I would normally have a cigg. (can you get addicted to bon bons…lol)
Anyway, 1 hour turned into 2… 4, 6, etc… until here I am at gone 3am and although I’ve thought about smoking, or not as the case may be....quite a lot actually, I’ve not really come close to falling off the wagon today. It’s all been rather easier than I thought to be honest, so I can only thank the Champix for that.
So as the title says its DAY 1 MISSION COMPLETE !!!
Sorry for the long post, but I think writing/typing makes things official…. If you know what I mean? (or is that the Champix effect lol)