Pamela Heywood

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I’ve actually achieved this, but today marks the second anniversary of my having given up smoking. Some time before that I’d bought nicotine patches, didn’t say a word to anyone, didn’t make any promises that I may not have been able to keep – not even to myself – and put them in the bathroom cabinet for "one day", if that day ever came.

It was on September 30th, 2007, when I realised I only had enough cigarettes in the pack to last until the end of the day that I figured either I had to rush out to the shops, or it was about to become a new month and here was an excellent excuse to use those patches.

The patches I’ve regretted ever since and I still say they caused a mild infarction.

Otherwise, after 2 years, the mixture of negatives and positives from giving up is, frankly confusing and somewhat comical. In a sense, I am very disappointed, because I certainly do not feel any better. For other reasons, actually, my health has seriously deteriorated in the last couple of years, so I suppose have to figure that it would have become MUCH worse, if I’d not given up.

I still get breathless easily, which, curiously never used to happen when I smoked. I still have a spontaneous, hacking, dry cough whenever I try to sing, take a deep breath, etc., that I also never had before. This year, I did volunteer myself for a lung function test because of these things and I was found to be absolutely normal. I’d told the nurse honestly how much I used to smoke and she had said, "Well, you got away with it." Which I figure is a good reason to stay stopped.

How much of my 55 lb weight gain is to do with stopping smoking, I don’t know. The after food craving I’ve managed to lick with mostly only will-power, or substituting with fruit or a glass of water. I’ve NOT to used extra food and especially not sugar as a substitute.

Two years on, I’m still getting cravings, although they are [too] slowly diminishing. First thing in the mornings is the worst and I still need a "fix" of strong, fresh, black coffee to kill that one, but I’ve also managed to reduce my coffee intake from 3+ to only 1 or 2 cups per day.

That’s probably because the Prozac is helping too!

Worst of all though, is that without the barrier of my own personal "smoke screen", all my other allergies and intolerances have become much more acute. Things I didn’t used to have negative reactions to, now bother me terribly. This is, I feel, also worsened by there being more pollution in the UK, closed housing with insulation, heating, synthetic carpets, etc., compared to the tiled floors and open doors and windows I was used to in Tenerife. There’s a factor that my fibromyalgia / chronic fatigue syndrome / multiple chemical sensitivity is probably getting worse with time and age, but the worsening did also markedly coincide with smoking cessation.

Whenever I go out and might have to wait around for buses, trains, doctors, etc., I make sure that I have entertainment in the form of music, radio, book, magazines (games might be next, if I can ever figure them out at my age), as well as something healthy to nibble and water to drink. I feel like I’m taking a toddler out with all the supplies I need to drag along, but I still just CAN NOT sit anywhere with nothing whatsoever to do. That is the surest way for me to reach into my bag absent-mindedly, expecting to find a packet of cigarettes and a lighter lurking at the bottom and for me to become exceedingly tetchy when I find that there are not.

On the plus side, I can enjoy other people’s cigarettes. I find it strange that this doesn’t upset me or cause cravings, but I actually find it "satisfying". It’s bloody good value too and I’m making all sorts of friends at bus stops when I sidle up to strangers and ask, "Can I ‘ave a whiff of your smoke mate?" :)

Looking back at the progress report I wrote last year, I’m seriously under-impressed to discover that, seemingly, nothing much has really changed or improved in the last year. I’ll have to wait until I’ve had 5 years smoke-free and see if I enjoy a huge improvement by then. I won’t hold my breath!

I promised myself that I’d write a progress report if I managed to go a whole year without smoking and I have, today.

Even after a year, I still crave cigarettes constantly. I still can’t sit and do nothing, even for 30 seconds. I dare not think about it: writing this has provoked the worst cravings I’ve had in 365 days. :) I still have a cough that I didn’t have when I smoked. I get breathless, which I didn’t when I smoked. In addition, I’ve had a year filled with major stresses and losses. The year has been hell actually, thank you, but I still stuck to this 100%.

How? Well, after a really bad experience with nicotine patches – that may even have been a mild heart attack – I’ve been too bloody scared smoke, because I just could not go through that again.

I’ve had only coffee and fruit as replacements. The former as it does help me with cravings and fruit, because I figured that if I overdosed on the latter it would provide the double benefit of clearing more poisons from my system, faster. (I’m still waiting for it to help me lose the weight I’ve put on.)

I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to give up smoking: I think it’s an entirely personal thing. I personally, don’t think I could have done it at all if I’d told anyone (even me) in advance, or got help, even from a professional, who would remind me and make me focus on the one thing I really HAD to avoid thinking about.

The right way, for me, probably would have been to have thrown myself into a DIY project for a few weeks. Alone. With Prozac. :)

If smoking is an addiction, I actually don’t think it does the potential ex-smoker any damn good to think of it in those terms, because that makes it seem a much bigger deal and more difficult hurdle to overcome, even than it is. And at this point you need to have belief and confidence in yourself and your abilities, so it would also be counter-productive to think of yourself as “an addict”, with the inference of weakness and other negative connotations.

Frankly, I don’t believe it to be true anyway. Who says we’re addicts, other than manufacturers of smoking “cures” (who need us to be “dependent” upon them); medics and others with a vested interest?

It seems to me much better value to forgive yourself for merely doing what was socially acceptable and perfectly normal at the time. (If you’re as old as me, they hadn’t even begun telling us smoking was harmful.) Maybe taking up smoking because all your friends did, or because you thought it made you look more grown up, or whatever excuse, is a bit pathetic when you really analyze it, but since so many of our peers did it, can you really say that only the “worst” people smoked? No, of course not! Maybe it just shows that we’re human? I prefer to simply accept that and move on.

Can you do it?

Well, if I smoked, finally 2 packs a day, from when I was 14 to when I was 50 (my mental arithmetic makes that 36 years) and I’ve managed to go a whole hell-like year without, I think anyone can.

Seriously. I didn’t even want to give up. I’m independent and strong willed enough, but I know I can lack self control when it comes to denying myself pleasures and I’m certainly not one to let anyone else try to deny me them! Smoking bans, to me, are like red rags to a bull and I might have given up 15 years earlier, if it hadn’t been for someone trying to tell me where I could and couldn’t smoke.

Yet it can’t have been impossible, can it?

The truth (not that I’d admit this in public), if we can face it, is that it’s really only uncomfortable and I suffer bigger discomforts.

But even after a whole year without smoking, I’m not willing to say that I’ve (yet) given up permanently and I’m not going to make the mistake of being complacent. There’s still work to be done.

And lots of TLC to award myself.

I had to say I’ve done this, “live in a foreign country”, to be able to comment and, it’s true that I’m British and have been living in Spain for many years. But, if you think about this – and pedantically split hairs and, please understand that I am saying this partly in fun – is that it is actually impossible to achieve.

Because, if you live in a country, IT is no longer “foreign”, YOU ARE! :)