This is a comment I’ve made on Charlotte Gore’s new post about giving up smoking…
I’ve given up twice; yes, I know but that may well happen when you’ve smoked for 8+ years and have all the willpower of a particularly weak willed fruitfly.
The first time I quit for 2 years but then found myself at a trade fair in Germany where people chainsmoked from breakfast and cracked open their first lager at 10am.
Second time out seems to have taken as it’s 4 years + now and I’ve had rough times since (like being diagnosed with MS tho the plus is smoking appears to significantly worsen the outcome of MS or at least correlates to worse outcomes!) so… yeah.
Anyway, word to the wise. Use NRT. Yeah, the patches will give you funky dreams and may make you itch and stuff but you need to know that your ‘addiction’ is as much about the physical habit of lighting up and the rituals therein as it is an addiction to nicotine. You don’t want to be worrying about both at the same time. NRT helps. Plus it’s trendy to medicalise your drug habits in the 21st Century and why pay tax on a payment to Phillip Morris when you can pay a subsidised fee to a Big Pharma instead?
The other thing is that, so far, four odd years out, I never, ever stopped having either the odd ciggie craving or rose-tinted reminiscence. But, I might live longer, or die faster if I just get run over as I continue walking in my dotage and I will definitely keep more of my own money, tax or no!
