"I am a non-smoker"

With the exception of a four/five-month break, I have been a smoker for around 10 years. That all ended nearly two weeks ago. I am now a non-smoker.

The origins of this habit began earlier. I had my first full cigarette the day of my 11th birthday and bought my first packet, myself, aged 12. I smoked now and then, on and off, until I was 15 and decided I didn’t want to be a smoker ‘when I grew up’. When I was 16, I started again and as mentioned earlier have been ever since, excepting a short intermission where I toyed with quitting, but if the truth be told, never viewed it as more than temporary anyway.

The past six months or so I was getting closer and closer to calling it quits on the nicotine front. I wasn’t enjoying it quite as much as I did and plans for the future were evolving – plans which required me to be a non-smoker. So I decided on a day and went and spoke to a chemist. After some chatting and divulging of my smoking habits and rituals, using patches was decided as the best way for me to go. I’m doing the 3 month program, where you use 21mg patches for 6 weeks, then 14mg ones for 3 weeks before dropping down to 7mg patches for 3 weeks. The chemist told me that some people are on them much longer than that and if I felt that I needed longer to keep using them. It’s obviously early days (Week 2 almost at an end) but I am comfortable using patches for as long as I need.

The day before Q-Day, I smoked a lot. Every 30 minutes I’d duck outside for a couple and really suck them back. I savoured every breath and tried to imagine how the next day would play out. I think that smoking that much actually helped me quit, as I felt a little ill by the time I puffed my last and climbed into bed. Waking the next day was tough, as I usually showered, dressed and smoked before heading off to work. There were many times throughout that day and the ones that followed where I was at a loss for periods of five minutes – these gaps were previously smoking time but they were now empty.

I came to realise that for me, smoking was a form of punctuation – a way of marking the passage of time: I ate then smoked, I worked a little the smoked, I arrived/left work and smoked, I got home and smoked, and so on. Without the smoking I was a little lost and found myself panicking about how I didn’t know what to do with myself at those previously-critical junctures. So I started having a glass of water, followed by some fruit, each time that I would normally have a cigarette. That helped and I have been eating a lot of fruit and drinking a lot more water than I used to. The first Saturday was tough and I ate a whole rockmelon on one sitting, wondering whether I’d really be able to shake the habit.

Each day has been a little easier, and knowing that my body isn’t psychotically screaming out for a smoke due to the patches, I have found myself getting better and not thinking about them. The other day though I forgot to put a patch on at home and went the day without one.

I was ok whilst at work but when I got home that night I was really struggling. I didn’t want to use a patch only for a few hours so I rode it out, but the wife found me particularly hard to be around and went to her folks for a few hours. Next morning I remembered and it was a lot easier.

So I’m two weeks in and quite proud of myself. It is easier this time also because I am definite in my desire not to be a smoker any more. I don’t want a sore throat any more and I don’t want the wife to roll away from me when I get into bed, put off by my odour. I keep telling myself that “I am a non-smoker” and it’s sinking in. Each day is better than the last (ever so slightly) and I am confident that by following the patch program I can really shake this addiction once and for all.

The kids I will one day have will be glad I live to see them become adults. And I will have beaten an addiction. Both pretty damn good motivators.