Giving Up Smoking

As I predicted at the end of my first week the next few days were stressful at work. Sundays usually mean absenteeism and less staff to get the work done. The same applied for Monday which was the Whitsuntide bank holiday. Less staff, more stress, harder to resist temptation.

The worst day was Sunday, I really struggled with myself but I’m glad to say that I didn’t buy any cigarettes. It wasn’t a matter of electronic cigarettes not working for me, it was harder because I didn’t have time to stop working and go outside for a few drags of my e cig so of course the cravings were there and stress increased.

Yes I’m still going outside for a smoke at work despite it being legal to smoke my e cigarette inside. I don’t want a big argument with head office and because of my position I should set a good example not a rebellious one, but I might not always feel that way!

I did really well until Wednesday and every day that goes by I feel better in myself and my chest has stopped making horrible noises when I lay on my back at night. It’s nice not to smell of ash trays or have my house smell of them. I’ve also found that I am smoking a lot less and that cartridges are lasting longer – 2 days instead of the initial one day.

I think that reduction has to do with the not having to light up factor. You light up a cig and smoke it, with e cigs I have 2 or 3 puffs and that’s enough for an hour or two.

Wednesday brought disaster. I tried to take my battery out of the charger and found that it was stuck, when I tried to unscrew it the end of the battery broke off inside the charger making them both unusable. Fortunately the spare battery was fully charged so I knew that I would be ok for at least a day.

As it was early morning and only had a couple of minutes before I had to leave for work I couldn’t think of anything else to do but dash off a quick email asking for help to the company who I buy from who can be found at www.easycigarette.co.uk. When I got home I checked my mail and found this reply ‘No problem – I’ll get replacements out in todays post.’

I felt so relieved at that response. You see I had been worried that I would go back to smoking normal cigarettes without my electric cigarettes and it made me realise just how much I didn’t want to. The charged battery ran out 31 hours later on my way to work and longer than I expected. As I was doing a 2-10 pm shift I knew that it was too soon to manage without a substitute, I didn’t want to  get crabby and tempted to buy some cigs so I was prepared with a nicotine patch in my bag.

It goes to show how many times that I’ve tried to stop smoking over the years by the amount of varying brands of nicotine patches to be found in most rooms of my house. Some are probably that old they are past their sell by date, but the pack I am using is ok.

I managed to resist temptation with my patch on and got through another day. This morning I realised yet again why patches don’t work so well for me. For the first time in 2 weeks I woke up with a horrible dry taste in my mouth, a runny nose and coughing – I had taken the patch off before going to bed. I waited 3 hours before I put a new patch on and only then because thoughts of running up to the shop for some cigs started to enter my head.

Although I put the patch in a different place to yesterday my skin feels sore and irritated and I want to rip it off but know that won’t do me any good. Hopefully my replacement battery and charger will arrive in tomorrows post and I can go back to electronic cigarettes .

While I was in town today I found some smokeless cigarettes. They are supposed to help you to stop smoking and haven’t got any nicotine in them. I bought some and will review them when I have tried them out.

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