How to give up smoking in Tenerife

I have developed a general health strategy for 2006. Having smoked my last cigarette at 11:59:59 pm on New Year’s Eve, I have spent the year, so far, trying my hardest to deal with my frequent cravings for the evil weed. And Tenerife is no easy place to give up: everybody here smokes. Unlike the UK, where the cost of a carton of cigarettes is equivalent to a small family car, here it is possible to pick up 200 smokes for next to nothing. So there has been no local financial incentive to quit the habit. Indeed, in the Canary Islands, it is nicotine patches that are extortionate.

So as my wife puffs a cigarette after her leftover turkey sandwich, I am still struggling with my own cold turkey as pangs of nicotine desire coarse through my every fibre. Fortunately I have found a method of dealing with it. I eat. I eat constantly, and I cannot stop eating. Because if I do stop, then I will get the ‘after meal’ craving for a smoke. So my solution is to never reach the end of a meal, at least until the cravings stop. January will be one, long lunch.

I have been told that the nicotine cravings should stop by the end of this month. By which time, I estimate that I will weigh about the same as a small hippopotamus. And this is where the second stage of my 2006 health strategy will kick in. My plan for February will be to kick the eating habit and lose weight. My sister in law reliably informs me that wine will assist in breaking down fat, and indeed a constant state of inebriation is a great way to not be in the mood to eat. Therefore my intention is to survive on a predominately liquid diet to sustain me through the month.

In March my plan is to beat the alcoholism that I will undoubtedly be a victim of. I have yet to research this thoroughly, but I understand that the regular use of intravenous class ‘A’ drugs tends to diminish alcohol dependency.

April will be a challenging month, of course, and at this point my research reaches its limits. I don’t doubt that there will be an adequate substitute for whatever class ‘A’ drug I will have become addicted to, but even if there isn’t… hey, who cares? I will have managed to give up smoking.