I have a whole plethora of resolutions this year. 

mmmm...lovely fags

Like so many other people I have chosen New Years Day 2009 to quit smoking…the first resolution  I say I chose this date, but really, I am a serial quitter.  You could say I’m really good at quitting smoking…that is of course until I start smoking again.  But in terms of quitting I’ve got it down to a fine art.

Just to note…I always go cold turkey.  I resent paying for nicotine replacement therapy.  Of course, ignore the fact I’ve been buying fags for the last 10 years! 

I always find the first day really easy…but that is usually because I have had a heavy night the night before…you know the type where you wake up feeling like you smoked literally every ciggie in the world, and your lungs are like full hoover bags.  The day after that night, my body is literally thanking me for not smoking.

Its the second day I find hard.  That’s the day that deep depression starts for me.  That’s today.  This is they day where I spend 50% of my time feeling incredibly sorry for myself and the other 50% of my time justifying why I should have a ciggie.  For example, after a row with V this morning, I think to myself ‘right that’s it, I’ll have a fag and it’ll be all his fault’.  Yeah right.  Sadly for V, he went out and did the very thing – had a fag.  And yes he is supposed to be giving up smoking with me.  And yes…the fact that he went out and smoked a fag does mean that I will be taking the moral high ground from now until next New Year.

From my extensive quitting experience I always find that the third day is peak day.  Its the day when the nicotine apparently leaves your system.   Tomorrow therefore will be the time where the tiniest thing will make me angrier than a bagful of incredible hulks in a frown-off.   Tomorrow is also incidentally the day that V and I go flat hunting.  I have the feeling that tomorrow will be…interesting.

But tomorrow I won’t lapse.  The time I usually lapse back into a bona fida nicotine chugger is around the 4 week mark.  And the reason?  Because I celebrate.  I KNOW at that point that I am a non smoker.  I’ve cracked it.  Therefore a fagarooni (as I like to call them sometimes) won’t hurt. 

And so the circle of ill health and addiction continues.

But not this time.  This time I will crack it.  Watch this space.