Trying to quit smoking…take 3
OK, the package from the VA pharmacy arrived today, and I have embarked on my journey to stop smoking…again. This is the third time this year that I will be doing this, and third time will be a charm!
Some of y’all may recall I tried this back in July, using some nicotine patches my coworker gave me after he ripped a patch off his arm and went to the convenience store next door to buy a pack of cigarettes. My plan was to start off with the hand-me-down patches and get the rest from the VA outpatient clinic. Well…the patches never showed up from VA and eventually they scheduled me an appointment for this month on the 6th. Yes, sometimes it really does take 7 weeks to get an appointment with the VA clinic, especially for non-emergency things.
So, the patches are finally here: 4 weeks of “step one” with 21mg of nicotine seeping into my bloodstream over a 24 hour period, 2 weeks of “step two” with only 14 mg of nicotine, then 2 weeks of “step three” with only 7 mg of nicotine. I just put my first patch of step one on about one hour ago.
I still have one cigarette left, and it is sitting on my computer desk. My organic chem professor suggested I shred up my last two cigarettes, instead of smoking them, and my son thinks I should hold onto this last one a keepsake, sort of “This is my last cigarette that I just didn’t smoke.” After 80 minutes since my last cigarette…right now I am leaning towards lighting that puppy up and smoking it! But I know I will never get anywhere that way…because then it will be “just one more” and so on ad infinitum. So as of now, it is still sitting on the top shelf of my computer desk.
Maybe I should go clean all the ashtrays in the house…I haven’t done that since spring, when I tried to quit the first time. It really is pretty yucky to see all that crud on the bottom of the ashtrays. Oh, for those of y’all who are already (or still) non-smokers, here’s a fun series over at Dough Roller, the newest member of the M-Network about personal finance and the game of chess.
