Almost a month off them now.
I’m now nearly four weeks off the cigarettes and like Kanye West, I’m very proud of myself. I am winning the war against tobacco and nicotine and not one shot has been fired.
Situation critical
It’s been well documented among the quit smoking fraternity that the 3-4 week period off the smokes is the most critical. Apparently this is the period when a lot of people fall off the wagon.
If anything, this has made me even more determined. I don’t want to be one of those quitter quitters. There’ll be white knuckles on the wagon this week!
Mood swings and roundabouts
The full exit of toxins from my body is still in process and I am still suffering with withdrawals, but they are getting easier. Yeah, I am still having the mood-swings and the feelings of despair but they’re easing.
Anyone that knows me will tell you that I am a fairly mild-mannered happy-go-lucky type of chap and it’s rare that I am in bad mood. The nicotine withdrawals have ensured that I’m not all cotton and candy though.
I used to laugh at people who got road rage, but I have begun to understand what it is like to get it. I was driving recently behind a car who exited a roundabout without indicating and from the wrong side.
I’m glad my kids were not in the car as expletive after expletive fell out of my mouth. Seasoned dockers would have been embarrassed by the choice language as I questioned that driver’s parentage and intelligence.
Textual healing
I’m happy I signed up with the HSE Quit campaign if even for their daily 8am text. There is a comfort about receiving them and you do feel like someone cares and is actively willing you to succeed and kick the habit.
Each morning at 8am when it comes in, I feel like someone opening the advent calendar at Christmas time to see what it says.
I have felt sad, as it says in that last text there, and I guess there’s a sense of mourning going on too. Something I have enjoyed for years is now stopped, but I am now ready for the next chapter in my life, a new healthier me.
Six Nation Army
I’m in Cardiff for the weekend and I would love to say that I am here for the rugby, but alas, it’s not true. I am over here to do some gigs in the wonderful Glee Comedy Club.
It just happened to coincide with the huge Six Nations match in the Millennium Stadium and one thing to test my resolve about staying off the smokes is a big match where the tension is bound to be through the roof.
I come home on Sunday and I am frantically trying to secure a ticket to the big match, when in Rome and all that.
Some might accuse me of jumping on the rugby bandwagon, but this journey is all about not falling off wagons, so forgive me if I try to jump from one to the other without stumbling. You wagon.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
