Wednesday, October 21, 2009 – 9:31
Another way to break bad habits, dependencies and addictions is with a little help from your friends. Whereas alcohol dependency is likely to be hidden, nicotine addiction is usually more open and people around you are more willing to accept its very addictive nature.
I stopped smoking just over 2 years ago and will not have used nicotine for 2 years at the end of December. The fight against cigarettes happened with the help and support of two other nicotine addicted friends who also around the same time decided to give it up. My wife had tried the NHS stop smoking service over the previous months and it is the usual stuff, doubt it would work for hard core smokers.
That is the issue with nicotine. It seems to have different levels of addiction. My wife who smokes less that 10 a day, fails despite trying often to give up. I know lots of people who take up and give up smoking on a frequent basis without suffering any sort of withdrawal symptoms and then there are the social smokers, the envy of smokers everywhere. It is only particular cigarettes that are enjoyed and social ones are included, otherwise all other smokes are maintenance of nicotine levels!
One of my friends could not be considered a heavy smoker – less that 20 a day decided to go with patches. He was the first official ‘non- smoker’ and having never seriously tried to give up before, his determination was so strong that he stopped using the patches before he finished the recommended course. He kept forgetting to put them on so gave up trying to remember in the end.
My other friend had long given up on cigarettes and was smoking roll ups (tobacco). This is one of the reasons why the government’s blind increase of tobacco tax is unadvisable. In the last few years, the increase of people using tobacco especially amongst young people is quite noticeable. Arguments abound as to whether it more healthy, with some people believing that the cigarettes companies’ carcinogenic pyrolytic ‘enhancements’ for cigarettes are not applied to their tobacco products. I have my doubts, I think a filter might help but few people add filters to their roll-ups. This friend’s fingers were constantly yellowed from his fairly heavy smoking habit. He also had the dreaded ‘morning’ cough.
Despite having smoked for about 4 decades, he decided to go cold turkey. He claims that he has previously ‘given up smoking many times before which normally lasted a couple of hours!’ He also had a new motivation, his only child, his one year old son that he wanted to be around for as long as possible and the morning cough served as a warning that at 50 years old, one needs to take a little more care. He ‘back slid’ for one day some 4 or 5 days into the change and then never looked back. He chewed gum, he ate much more, kept busy and did not smoke. Two years on and still glad to have given it up.
As for me, I was near a 60 a day especially with the drinking and, on late nights, another 20 did not go amiss. I did not go anywhere without a spare pack in the jacket pocket. Cigarettes are bad, I have been running around in a taxi at 3 in the morning, looking for cigarettes. My last £10 has been spilt between milk for the baby and a ten pack and that is why I had given up twice before. First real try was cold turkey and lasted a few months. The second time I did, I started cold turkey, used the nicotine lozenges and when I finally stopped, I was using the inhalator. There was a lot of praying going on as well as major back-up. That smoke free period lasted about eight months and ended at about the same time as I became a confirmed atheist!
Both smoke free periods ended with the demon, drink. Drunk, in a smoke filled pub or club was where the slippery slope back started. However, I am convinced that if it were not for the stupid advise ‘if you smoke, then you start again’. Who came up with that stuff? I am convinced I would not have continued smoking the second time if I was not convinced that I had undone all the 8 months of non-smoking. I notice that current advice is fairly silent on the matter.
Another think that stuck in my mind was the warnings on the ‘cigarette replacement’ (not really nicotine replacement, is it?) products about ‘mixing’ products and overdoses which just makes you wish you did not need to use this ‘dangerous’ stuff to stop smoking. I have also notice the toning down of those messages especially the mixing the use of different products.
I did not know that though but I was prepared to use my own brains this time. If I am craving, then I cannot have overdosed. Since I smoked 60 a day, it will take quite a lot of patches to overdose. The chances that any one product will maintain nicotine levels at a point that I do not want a cigarette are slim so I will have two.
I purchased the strongest patches and the inhalator. On my first morning, I smoked in the morning as usual. Then just before I went to work, I had my last cigarette and stuck a patch on which maintained my nicotine level for the rest of the day. Over the next few weeks I followed the patch program – keeping it on overnight – but always had my inhalator as backup. Anytime, I felt the urge to smoke, I took the inhalator until the urge went away. It was god sent, I could use it in the pubs – which thankfully were now smoke free – and I even managed to continue to use it even when terribly drunk.
Eventually, I completed the patch program, in the last week, forgetting the patch two or three times and I had not used the inhalator in days. It was a few days before Christmas so I kept the inhalator which I think I used infrequently until New Year ’s Eve when I threw it away.
Over the whole period, we kept asking each other, talking about the withdrawl effects and generally encouraging each other to stay stop smoking.
Each of us chose our own way and went for it and I think that it the answer. It has to be right for you, I used science and another used motivation and the other sheer brute determination! Sometimes, the experts try and prescribe, assuming most people just want to be told, when all we want is enough to make an informed decision about what will work for us. What will work for me?
May you find the balance.
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‘, it has been estimated that the human body is built to do about 12 miles a day of walking – many of us are nowhere close! You are more unlikely to cause yourself damage from walking than from many other forms of sports. Oh don’t get me wrong, if you are into something more strenuous, knock yourself out but I put it to you that the vast majority of us are not motivated enough to keep up the long term commitment required to ‘lose the weight’, ‘get fitter’ or any other reason.