Goodbye Old Friend

It's now been five days fifteen hours forty-nine minutes and seven seconds since I quit smoking. Not that I'm counting or anything. So far it's been stressful, emotional and to be honest, really bloody hard.

So far it's been stressful, emotional and to be honest just really bloody hard. I've given up a few times in the past for anything between a few days to a little over seven months. Each time has not been without it's difficulties, but I'm hoping this time is the one that's going to mean something.

Yesterday was probably the hardest day so far, and I assumed it was just a general feeling of sadness and being the day I teach in a school making it hard. I had to stop myself from going into shop I drove past on the way to and from work, and at one point I even opened the glove box of my car thinking if I were to find a pack of cigarettes in there that I'd somehow forgotten about I would just smoke and end the general grogginess and of something being missing from my daily routine that's plagued me for the past few days.

When I took my shirt off last night I discovered my nicotine patch was missing, just gone completely and nowhere to be found. I searched all of my clothes, turned my socks inside out, hunted all over the floor but it just wasn't there. I didn't even have the usual marks left on my arm from a whole day of wearing a patch, or the slight itchy redness they tend to leave on my skin.  The only explanation is that it came off in the morning when I got dressed, meaning it can't have been on for even an hour and I went the whole day having to use willpower alone.

Well... that or I blacked out, rolled it up and smoked it at some point yesterday afternoon and then wiped my own memory.

The last time I quit I did it for my girlfriend at the time. It was a couple of months into our almost year long rocky relationship, and while she never said "sSop smoking I hate it" I was left with a feeling of guilt every time I had one and had to cut down smoking around her. I quit using the patches then too and it worked for a while...until the relationship and life in general started going downhill.

The first day I started smoking again she found the pack while we were in the pub and got very publicly upset with me. I was actually going to tell her I'd had two cigarettes that day but being as I met her in the pub surrounded by her friends I was saving it until  the walk home. That was actually the beginning of the end for the relationship as I was accused of hiding things from her, and then there became a serious trust issue.

I did actually stop again after that night, but me being me the next time there was an accusation of me hiding something (I wasn't) and the words "You lied to me about smoking" were uttered I decided to be the rebel, and I started smoking again.

It's a big flaw in my character, really, ever since I was a child if I was falsely accused of something enough times I would just think "Screw it" and go right ahead and do it. I'm not sure if I'm cured now, old enough to see how silly that is or whether it's just been so long since a false accusation I haven't had chance to be a dick about it. Anyway, I digress.

For the last few months of my last relationship I was smoking behind her back for the whole time. She was seeing me less and less anyway, which made it easier for me to hide. I'd carry around mints and spray and at the height of my little love triangle between the ex and some Marly lights I'd be showering up to seven times a day and sending my washing machine into overdrive.

I realise some of you will think I'm a complete bastard for this, and you're probably right. In my defense I was going through a lot of crap outside of that relationship, most of which, I don't really want to write about at this point in my life, but needless to say whilst the best of excuses don't usually make a deception morally right the fags helped me cope in a time I could have very easily lost more than a relationship.

Time for me to come off the psychiatrist's couch now and wrap things up. Why am I trying to give up smoking this time?

They say you should never quit for someone else and I've proved that that is sound advice in the the past, but partly I'm giving up for Amy. It's been very nearly two years since we started going out and I know she doesn't like me smoking. While I'd like to avoid doing things she doesn't like a) to make her happy and b) to avoid pissing her off to the point where she castrates me in my sleep, I'm secure in the knowledge that she loves me for who I am, smoker or not, and that as long as I try to give up she will appreciate that I've made an effort to meet her halfway.

Mostly I'm giving up for me, well future me. I'm a musician so I can't really afford to smoke. If I'm honest, as a smoker I'll always find a way to smoke, but without wasting my money on something I'm going to set fire to I can try to put something aside, maybe pay off some debts or have that little bit of extra cash I'd have if I worked a nine to five.

This is the decade my life that will see the biggest changes, too. In all likelihood, and a lot of hope, by 2020 I'll be married with my own place and children, and I don't want to have to spending at least £6 every single day on a pack of fags. I don't want to give my own children the impression that smoking is OK and I want to live long enough to see my own grandchildren, complain about loud music and tell everyone who'll listen how old I am and how much better things were in my day. If I'm going to be a burden to society I'd rather do it taking rubbish to strangers and embarrassing my family than lying in a hospital bed making everyone who cares about me worry a good decade before it's really my time.

Can I do it? Can I quit for good? The answer to that is I just don't know. I've made it this far, which is brilliant, but If I had a really bad day or something terrible were to happen over the next few months then who knows? Sorry to disappoint anyone expecting a great big YES but that's just the way it is.

Hopefully given enough time I'll have other ways of getting through things without my nicotine crutch. I sure hope so, but for now all I can do is take things one day at a time. Oh, and maybe seek help for my new found pack-a-day Mentos addiction.