Ex Smoking Blues

It’s been 888 hours since my last cigarette! That’s 37 days, or 16,473 pangs of desire for the delicious weed (make that 16,474). And I have to say that I do feel a bit conned by the ‘Stop Smoking’ lobby. Firstly I was supposed to stop craving the little lovelies (16,475) after a month. Clearly this has not happened. Secondly I am supposed to feel more energetic and fit. No way. Definitely not. You may remember from my quit smoking strategy, that my plan was to replace the nicotine with food. Well I have been assiduous in so doing. So much so that (as predicted in that post), I am indeed the weight of a small hippopotamus. Well, I was a 20 a day smoker… what do you expect? That’s a lot of meals! My trousers are all straining to contain me (I think this is why hippos are rarely seen in trousers), and I still puff at the top of the stairs. Admittedly this is not so much due to reduced lung capacity, but from the sheer effort of moving this new found bulk.

But there are other benefits that I am supposed to have received. For instance food is supposed to taste nicer. Well, I can certainly vouch for it tasting more frequently, but nicer? Not really. Oh yes, and then there’s the improved sense of smell. I admit that my sense of smell has become more sensitive, but improved? Not on your nelly. I can smell every single foul and pongy thing within 100m. Yeuch. Give me back my numbed olfactory system, this super-sense is driving me nuts.

There’s also supposed to be a financial advantage. But again, I’m certain there’s not. Cigarettes in Tenerife are cheap. They cost next to nothing. They certainly cost less than my several daily meals and snack attacks that I have replaced them with. Non smoking is costing me money!

So if you started reading this post, expecting the self satisfied, smug ramblings of an ex-smoker, I am sorry. This may be the first new year’s resolution that I have ever managed to keep for longer than a few hours, but there’s no feeling of achievement. Just the nagging feeling that I’ve been sold something that doesn’t do what it’s supposed to, but I can’t take it back to the shop because I’d feel too stupid, or embarrassed returning it…

I have talked to smokers who have given up before, sometimes for long periods, and then been drawn back by the seductive charms of the little white sticks (16,475). When I ask them why, they shuffle their feet a lot and look down at the ground. They are torn between their taste for tobacco and the social pressure that made them stop. And because the general view is that starting again must be symptomatic of a weak mind, they are shamed into this position of shoe shuffling. Therefore it seems to me that it takes great bravery and strength of mind to surmount these social pressures and start smoking again! By God, these are modern day heroes!

My wife says I’m full of crap.

16,476… 7… 8… bloody hell.

So I can’t start smoking again. And now I am going to have to do something about the eating, or else buy a complete new wardrobe. And I hate shopping, especially for clothes.

There’s nothing else for it. I am going to have to go on a girly diet. I have never been on a diet before, but I am sure that it is definitely a girly thing to do, because I have only heard females admitting to it or talking about it. Wait… I need to consult my wife (she is female, thus an expert).

…!

No… surely not?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!