Saturday, July 05, 2008

I haven't smoked a ciggy for 4 days

I haven’t posted a blog, as I hadn’t had much success with the non smoking. I waited in the end till the 4th week after my Dad’s funeral, and the first week I slipped up quite a bit and then on the 4th day I brought tobacco. I didn’t however listen to the Paul Mckenna CD much. So I decided to try again on the following Monday.

I listened to the Paul Mckenna CD 2 to 3 times a day, and it does help. I slipped up and had about 1 roll up a day until the Friday. Even though I had slipped up I was pleased with my progress. On the Thursday I went to a smoking cessation appointment, and decided I needed a bit extra to support my will power, and to help with the withdrawal symptoms, as I was beginning to get very tearful, so I said yes to patches.

The woman I saw said the doctor had to do the prescription, and it would be available to pick up at the chemist next day. However it wasn’t, and I slipped up a bit more on the Friday night. On the Saturday the prescription still wasn’t in, and I was fine during the day, but in the evening as friends had come down to stay for the weekend, we went out got a bit drunk and I started smoking again.

So on the Monday I had to start again. This time the prescription was in and although I couldn’t use one that day, I managed to only slip up once that day. I started with a patch on Tuesday the 1st of July and I haven’t smoked one cigarette since. I opted for the 10ml patches instead of the 15ml as I had done very well without them, and they are brilliant. I haven’t had any cravings and none of the tearful irritable emotional crap I’ve had for the past two weeks.

I now have more hope of a smoke free future. The patches enable you to deal with the habit and the psychological addiction before slowly cutting out the nicotine. I am so determined and I recognised will power wasn’t quite enough on its own.

I am seeing the benefits already. I don’t smell of smoke, my sense of smell is much much better, and I do not have yellow fingers. After not smoking for two days I did a Fitness DVD and was surprised how much more breath I had. I was able to go quite high impact. They say 3 days, 3 weeks and 3 months are the most difficult times with giving up and I’ve got over the 3 day barrier. I will keep you posted how I progress through the weeks.