As you can see from this post, my first attempt at quitting smoking was far from successful, and it wasn't until 12th of August (day 2) when I posted it that I seem to have finally cracked it. That was nearly 2 months ago - yay me!
"My quit smoking schedule went way off track after a few days, and if I’m honest, there is absolutely no excuse for it. This time, I’ve gone back to the patches. I could never, during the first weeks of quitting, trust myself with the lozenges, and they weren’t brilliant. A few of the downsides were:
1/ not being able to drink whilst sucking a lozenge – nothing to do with alcohol consumption, but anything at all! One of the most important tips I’ve heard of is to drink plenty of water when you’ve quit to alleviate some of the cravings.
2/ Not being able to eat – whilst snacking isn’t something I want to do, trying to time a half hour lozenge, which in reality took almost 2.5hours to dissolve, around breakfast, lunch and dinner, was not easy at all – especially when you’re supposed to be consuming 9 lozenges a day.
3/ The taste – to be honest, it wasn’t brilliant and also, everyone knows mint screws with the taste of virtually anything!
4/ Having to persuade yourself to take something, rather than just getting cigarettes.
Patches are pretty much hassle free. They allow you to do anything you’d normally do, don’t screw with your taste buds, and once they’re on, you don’t have to think about putting another one on every few hours. There are a few downsides to them as well though – although I expect many of these will vary from person to person:
1/ They itch like crazy for the first 10-15 minutes of putting them on – uncomfortable but bearable!
2/ They also cause limb ache for the first half hour or so, which limb of course depends on where you put them. It’s not an awful pain, more like a dull ache or muscle cramping.
3/ They leave “plaster marks” which take forever to remove! I have heard one tip however, that using nail polish remover the day after taking the patch off, can work wonders at removing the excess glue – I shall see how that one pans out.
So, as before, I’m feeling quite positive. I put the patch yesterday afternoon, now I just have to make sure that I’m not tempted to buy any more cigarettes (easier said than done!) – luckily I managed to keep the patch on overnight and get to sleep ok, so that really helped avoid the craving first thing this morning, and seemed to stop me even considering getting a packet of cigs too. Another help has been to favourite the website of my first ‘bribery purchase’, so I keep looking at the shoes whenever I want a reinforcement of why I’m doing this!
I’ve decided to structure a bribery routine. Rather than just saying ‘I’ll treat myself’, I want to develop a scale of things to treat myself with – and to help myself with this I shall also be using the “Jar Method”. The Jar Method will involve putting the money I don’t spend on cigarettes in, yes, you guessed it, a jar, and dipping in to that for the treats.
So far, my treat scale involves the following:
Week 1 – 1st treat = SHOES!
Week 3 – 2nd treat = WEEKEND AWAY
Month 6 - big treat = TATTOO
Month 12 = HOLIDAY
I’m trying to think of a few things to put in between, little treats so that I don’t get too overwhelmed with waiting a few months for the big ones, so If anyone has any ideas, feel free to leave a comment, or send me a tweet!
And just so you know, any support is much appreciated :-)
Yours, The Perpetual Quitter.
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