BLOG - This morning I woke up with a slight headache and a great thirst after consuming too much wine yesterday.
And then the horrific realisation hit home: I have to quit smoking today! I literally exploded in a cold sweat, in spite of the morning light spelling “sunny scorcher”.
Let me explain. Last night, when I had a lot of Dutch courage on account of some excellent Sauvignon Blanc, I promised my lovely new boyfriend – a reformed ex-smoker – to give up my stinky crutch in life and to write a daily blog about my self-inflicted deprivation.
Now, I know that you never ever commit to anything when you’ve enjoyed a bottle of wine, but it didn’t seem quite so daunting while he was whispering sweet nothings in my ear all the way from Pretoria. Especially when he suggested I write a blog about the experience and share my agony with Group Editors’ online readers. He called it “your experience”, but agony it is.
I started smoking in 1982 at the age of 16 and I am turning 56 on 1 April. I have been a smoker for 40 YEARS! It feels like nicotine and the act of smoking is part of my DNA; an integral part of my identity; of who I am. When I’m happy I smoke, when I’m sad I smoke, when I’m tense I smoke, when I’m bored I smoke, when I party I smoke, when I work I smoke... the list goes on.
I’ve changed my brand through the years, but Camel Blue, known as Camel Lights before the cigarette cops clamped down, has been my one constant companion since the age of 30 – my dad called them Ilse’s kameeldrolle. Through the years I once stopped for 3 months after attending a smoking cessation course based on the famous book, Alan Carr’s easy way to stop smoking. Easy?! Hah!
It was utter hell and one night I just plucked a lit cigarette from a friend’s lips and puffed away. (By the way Alan Carr died of lung cancer at the age of 72 in 2006. Before he quit, he used to indulge a 100-a-day-habit.)
My dad stopped smoking about 25 years before he died, but told me at the age of 80, just before his death in 2015, that he still sometimes craved a cigarette.
I read somewhere that nicotine is soluble, so I’m drinking lots of water and also avoiding alcohol as booze and cigarettes are close friends. Today I nibbled more than usual so I’ll have to take care that the kilos don’t pile on. I am also a little irritable. Well, maybe more than a little.
But, dear reader, I am determined. And if you are a smoker or an ex-smoker, you can imagine or know what I am going through. And if you are one of those lucky, wise people who never fell for the traitorous, lethal charms of smoking, count your blessings and the money that you never spent on poison sticks!
Day one is almost over and it will be early to bed to lessen the awareness of the withdrawal symptoms. Sleep is the great escape. So tomorrow morning when I wake up, I will once again tell myself: I am not smoking today. I can survive for one day without my 20 usual back-stabbing friends.
And the next day I’ll (hopefully) do it again. May Day 2 treat me with kind, tenderness. Watch this space.
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