IF you’ve read the Shape Up Swindon update in the print edition of the newspaper, you’ll know that I’ve been cheating on my non-smoking pledge.
No, not cheating in the usual way of folk who give up smoking as a New Year’s resolution. I haven’t been disappearing to remote locations at odd moments and firing up Lambert and Butlers. I haven’t even been hanging around smokers and hoping to catch a stray lungful.
The fact is, to my way of thinking at least, I’ve been cheating right from the beginning – firstly because I didn’t give up on New Year’s Eve at all and secondly because the worst pangs of early withdrawal were masked by the effects of one of the worst colds I’ve ever had.
I smoked my last cigarette some time during the evening of December 25 and then felt so wretched that I didn’t leave the sofa for about three days. The very thought of smoking, even though I used to get through 10 or 15 a day, made me gag and cough like a consumptive 19th century poet about to take his place alongside Byron, Shelley and their mates among the delicate dead.
Therefore, whereas going through horrible nicotine withdrawal is supposed to be part and parcel of the first few days most people spend off the fags (and the thing most likely to make them light up again), I seem to have missed out.
The nearest I come to lighting up is the occasional mild urge. I take a few deep breaths and the urge goes away. Sometimes – every other day or so - the cravings are stronger, in which case I’ll chew a quarter of a piece of nicotine gum or have half a squirt of nicotine nasal spray.
Both of these items are so thoroughly disgusting that my concentration is immediately diverted from the shrinking nicotine monkey on my back and toward more pressing matters, such as keeping my last meal on board.
So there you have it: my first blog update after giving up smoking and I have a disappointing lack of horror stories to share. Is there anybody else out there who gave up lately and is finding their addiction going out with a whimper rather than a bang? Am I some sort of freak? I suppose it must be different for everybody.
Anyway, please feel free to comment. I have the urge to compare notes.