The Quit Factor

I am celebrating a strange anniversary today. Strange, because, when I look back, one year ago, I was standing at my kitchen sink, washing dishes and arguing with myself out loud. You see, today is my 365th consecutive day without a cigarette. Jan. 21, 2009 was my first day and it sucked in a colossal way.

I smoked heavily for almost 15 years and FYI, for most of that time, I freaking loved it. Yeah, I know, I’m not supposed to say that, but it’s true and anyone who didn’t like my smoking could kiss my white, Irish ass, thank you very much. If I wanted to smoke, who was it hurting?

Then I met my niece. Well, at the time, she technically was not my niece, but my now fiance’s niece. But, that’s not the point. The point is that she thinks I am the bees-knees and has since the moment we met. Really. It was like evidence that he and I were meant to be together. She immediately accepted me into her family. She was two then, so I really didn’t have to worry too much about her thoughts on smoking. I did hide it from her, though, mostly to avoid questions.

Last year, she turned six and suddenly was old enough to start wondering why I was the only person in the family going outside in sub-zero weather. I told a couple of white lies, but I knew if I didn’t want her to think that smoking was cool, I was going to have to quit. I think I had always known the day would come eventually.

I came up with a plan that worked for me. I got a prescription for Chantix from my doctor and I started cutting back. Two weeks before my target quit date, I cut back from 1 pack a day to 1/2 that. Ten days before, I started eliminating one cigarette a day and started taking the Chantix.

BTW, if you’ve seen the Chantix commercials, you know that it cuts off the nicotine receptors in your brain so you can actually smoke while you take it, unlike say the patch or gum. This “effectively reduces your urge to smoke.” Yeah, that basically means that smoking while you’re on Chantix is pointless. You know that happy, relieved, warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you smoke a butt? That’s gone. It’s like they take the fun part out of smoking, which leaves you with all the nasty aspects that the endorphines kept you from noticing before.

Suddenly, I was acutely aware of the additive smell, not the tobacco, but the chemical crap they put in it. No longer getting the nicotine high, the scratchy feeling in the back of my throat was starting to bother me. And still, a year ago, the first 24 hours I tried to go without, I wanted one.

But, I resisted. I tried to keep my nieces and nephews in mind, but I hadn’t realized how dependent I had become on smoking and I didn’t want anything to have that kind of power over me. The next three days were the hardest and two weeks from today, something would happen that nearly derailed all my progress, but I made it. At the time, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, so you’ll have to forgive me if I toot my own horn a little today.

I know a lot of people who make New Year’s resolutions. I don’t really believe in doing so on an arbitrary day, but I do believe in making resolutions for your life. If you want it enough, you can make it happen.

Cheers,

SPF

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 4:35 pm and is filed under About SPF. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.