Giving Up Smoking

23 days and it seems like much longer. That statement makes it sound like I’m struggling but I’m not, it just seems as if more time has passed. This time round my giving up smoking attempt seems easier so we shall have a look at the main 3 reasons why.

1. I have finally accepted that smoking was damaging my health and there were enough signs of that to make me really want to quit.

2. By blogging about giving up smoking I have put my experiences and thoughts out there for the world to see. If I fail then I will fail in front of the hundreds who visit this blog and I don’t want to let down them or myself.

3. I have found an extra aid that is working for me and that is electronic cigarettes ” href=”http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=smokersstop08-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0017PK05M&md=0M5A6TN3AXP2JHJBWT02&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr” target=”_blank”>electronic cigarettes , but I am not reliant upon them.

In my 2 week update I said that my electronic cigarette had broken and that the company were going to send me a new battery and charger that day. They didn’t honour that and ignored an email asking them about it so they have lost any repeat custom or recommendations from me.

In a way they did me a favour because I continued using nicotine patches for a week quite happily. Then I had another go at trying to get the broken end of battery out of the charger. After piking at it for ages it finally came out, so I recharged the spare battery and puffed away at my e-cigarette.

I enjoyed it but I had been thinking about the difference between patches and electric cigarettes and the way nicotine enters your body. With patches nicotine enters your bloodstream through your skin, with e cigarettes it goes into your lungs. I’m not a scientist but I can’t help wondering if they still cause damage to your lungs despite not having the harmful chemicals that tobacco products have.

Anyway I decided to stick to nicotine patches, but have gone onto the step 3 5mg nicotine patch, which I work out to be the nicotine equivalent of 5 or less cigarettes a day depending upon how long you wear them. I’m doing fine with the lower dosage despite a stressful sudden management changeover at work 4 days ago.

Despite stopping for longer on previous occasions I’ve never got as far as stage 3 with patches because I haven’t felt as if I could trust myself on a lower dosage. That might sound silly but that’s the way that I’ve felt.

What would happen was that I would have a stressful day at work and then sneakily buy 10 cigarettes on the way home.  Chain smoke half of them and then break the rest up and throw them away before going to bed.Does that sound familiar?

Now I have a stressful day at work, but my patch is helping me to get by. In the back of my mind is being able to give myself a treat of a few drags of my electronic cigarette when I take my patch off during the evening. So I have a smoke to look forward to without cheating and buying regular cigarettes.

What I have achieved is getting out of the habit of taking smoke breaks at work, smoking a cigarette on my way to and from work and automatically having a cigarette after meals. I guess this has been the true breaking the habit week yet I can still look forward to a few drags of my electronic cigarette later on this evening, that’s if I feel like it.

I tried a Crafe Away false cigarette, but I thought that it was rubbish. It tasted perfumed and was nothing like a substitute for cigarettes. I think that it would be better to get nicotine free cartridges for my electronic cigarette once I have weaned myself off the patches.