Morning all,
Yesterday I thought I'd throw the dice on the old patches. I'm currently 3 or 4 days into my 15mg pack. I tried going without. Got to about 8pm and started to feel the bite. The emptiness. The thousand yard stare.
So I cut one in half - and have the other half on me today. Which means I'm doing a 7.5mg patch. I'll do these until they run out then get a pack of 10mgs, cut them in half and for the last part - cut into quarters:
25mg
15mg
7.5mg
5mg
2.5mg
I find it hard to believe that you could go to nothing from 10mg of nicotine. Wait a minute! It's almost designed for you to 'slip' (back into the tobacconists!) I mean... Call me a cynic...
Anyway...
So, I noticed again, the further I get from the act of smoking, the more I watch smokers.
Out this morning for my walk, the first 3 people I almost bump into are smoking freshly lit cigarettes. I wonder again if there is ever going to be a society where you're not sucking up nicotine, somehow. I have walked behind smokers for a good 5 minutes before and wondered:
"I must be getting something from this?"
It must be akin to getting off heroin, but every street corner you turn there are 4 people sat on a pavement tapping up an unused vein, belt between their remaining teeth... HEROIN GALORE!
I think I have turned my own corner this time though. I am absolutely thinking different. Saturday evening, about 6pm, I'm at a Sainsburys mini shop, there's a guy, kind of mid 20's? Perfectly healthy looking, he's having a night tonight, he's getting his baccy in:
"Uh Yah... LARGE pack of American spirit please... "
"Oh... and a pack of silver Rizla, please... "
Initially my every fibre bristles with an excitement, til my memory cells kick in and reminds me that it is just not for me, not anymore. Done my time in that rodeo. Rode that horse already.
Then I think about the guy... He's got time to burn. I don't. He's got a fresh complexion. I don't. He's probably got great teeth. I certainly do not(!) most importantly, it's the way he puts his order over - it's quite loud, it is verging on remonstrative, like he's saying:
"Look... How tough am I, everyone?"
And I think it reminds me of what I once did, when I could, when I had the health to burn, when I had the time, the youth, the attention.
The naivety.
I know. In time, and let's face it, life is short, oh so very short... that it will be him - watching a younger man loudly asking for his poison, while he watches, wanting a hit, knowing that he's a few smokes away from serious dental work, complications, shortness of breath, smelling of a toasted armpit, thinking:
Mug.
I understand this thing that is making me 'want'. That is how I have it beaten this time.
Oh... The 10 second breath trick?
When walking past smokers (who've been relegated to the doorway or curb) I find it advantageous to hold my breath, about 10 seconds should do it (I get a bit 'splurty' at about 8 seconds, but this will improve!) by then you've passed the main thick tobacco smoke and can then take a nice lungful of, I don't know, say, car exhaust fumes instead.
Now then... When are we banning cars? Monoxides, smoke, etc., etc.
No? Just me then...
😉
ps: The first day of glorious unfettered sunshine on Sunday, and the only mosquito in the U.K as yet manages to find my upper right butt cheek. Unless I get in a Michael Jackson style oxygen tank for 5 days this thing is going to itch me like a mofo. I'm always getting hit. Came back from a birthday outing to Bruges last year - in October - cold weather, mainland Europe... 14 bites. Temples, knuckles, stomach, maaaaan... I hate skeeters!
