The primary purpose of writing this blog is to keep me on track and focused on a continuing path to better health. This all started back on August 10th, 2008, the day I stopped smoking. Giving up the evil nicotine weed is hard enough to do in the best of circumstances but even more so where there is a culture of smoking; smokes are cheap, people smoke everywhere and so many people are smokers. I've even known non-smokers who started smoking after moving to Asia, so when I say that I gave up smoking while living in Vietnam, I can take a little extra out of that than if I said I gave up in my home country, New Zealand.
How did I do it? The hard way, cold turkey. Here's a myth: Smoking is your friend, so it's only natural to grieve it's loss, to miss it and go through processes akin to the loss of a person. Really? Have you ever had a 'friend' that tried to kill you 20 times a day? I'm sorry, but imagine your best friend sticking a knife into you 20 times a day and you realise there is something really wrong with the 'smoking is my friend' idea. The key for me giving up smoking was the realisation that all that psycho-grief-babble was enabling me to smoke and what was required to stop was a truly bitter parting - something akin to a really bad divorce which I could choose to win.
The first 3 months were pure hell, a battle fought minute by minute, breath by breath. Everything else took a back seat while I fought to get my life back. What I did grieve for was all the quality time in my life that smoking had taken away from me, while I also developed a deep resentment of the shackles of nicotine. Apart from one evening's slip during those first 3 months, when I got roaring drunk listening to the tales of a Madam in Vung Tau, there has been no compromise. I have a little test that I check myself with periodically. If a meteor was about to wipe out Earth and we had 24 hours notice, would I have a cigarette? My answer is hell no, I'm going out the way I came in, free.
