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.
I've given up smoking twice and each time I put on half a kilo a week. There are thyroid problems in my family and I know I am border line. I found it REALLY depressing each time and even with exercise, the weight remained.
ReplyDeleteI took smoking back up again a couple of months ago and am losing about 100 grams a week and killing myself at the same time. It's not only the weight gain, but the incessant nagging withdrawals that lure me back. ONE DAY, I'll see a doctor about both.
Hi Snap, sorry to hear of your struggles with both these demons. I think this is the toughest place to be in, where you know something needs to change but you're so stuck you can't find a way to be your own change agent. For me in the end it came down to my desire for change outweighing my body's resistance to change. Keep at it and you'll get there one day. It took me 40 something years!
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