Smoking sucks and so does not smoking

in the words of Dorothy Parker

Résumé

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Secret Tips

Now I've been smoke-free for three months, one week, 21 hours, 19 minutes and 26 seconds. 3915 cigarettes not smoked, saving £1,011.73. Life saved: 1 week, 6 days, 14 hours, 15 minutes.

Mystery Dude asked me do I have any tips?

I don't want to be a big old Negativio but I don't really.

The thing is, forget all that propaganda shite about what a liberating time smoking cessation is. It doesn't seem to have been a time for joy and celebration, relishing the new potency of your healthy bod etc etc.

It has been a time of grim endurance. Even now after 3 months I want a fag almost all the time. There is a sort of pleasure in noticing how much suffering I've endured.

Sounds like I'm being sarky, but I'm not, there's a tip after all. Enjoy the fact that you have endured suffering. Think about the people who love you, which I'm sure in your case MD is quite a gang. So you have given them the best gift by taking steps to avoid death, even though it hurt and inconvenienced you massively. Even though it made you into a fat mentalist. Even though you can't sleep and when you do everything feels wrong and bleak when you wake up. Even though life is now confusing and different.

So you did all that - for them, and you. That would make you a hero wouldn't it? xx

And then..

..all of a sudden it seems I have not smoked for Two months, three days, 20 hours, 28 minutes and 31 seconds. 2514 cigarettes not smoked, saving £649.90. Life saved: 1 week, 1 day, 17 hours, 30 minutes.

• I am fed up with life without fags.
  
• Every evening goes on forever and is no fun.
  
• Every part of me itches.
  
• I hear myself moan on and on about everything to everyone.
  
• There is a faint atmosphere of tomato soup coming up from my lungs all the time and it is debilitating.
• I am a great big fatso now.
• My only relief is in being drunk and sleeping with people I shouldn't.

I thought I might be able to blog myself back to joy. But then was I ever there?

Been thinking about why I complain so much and I suddenly got it, its because I don't think its fair. Whew - listen to the first sentence I uttered this morning. "I just want my sink outlet to go down a pipe into a drain, like everyone else's does". (Sink currently outletting over a concrete bit of the garden because a pipe fell off)
Well that's fucked up thinking. Sure, its true that most people's used washing-up water goes down a drain at this point in time. But what I mean to imply with my sulky whinge is that this sort of thing doesn't happen to anybody but me. I am so so so unlucky.

But am I buggery unlucky. Check it out. I live in a 5 bedroom house that I have complete control over. I have enough money to live on. I love my job. I am my own boss and my business is thriving. I have 3 children that are, in the main, superb. Though I have smoked 40 fags a day for nigh on 30 years, I do not have emphysema or lung cancer (touch wood). I can think of at least 5 men who would love to be my boyfriend. I have many and varied lovely and loyal friends. I have the freedom to do what I like. I've got a brilliant dog, an ace piano teacher, loads of good books to read and an acting workshop to go to on Monday's.

Off to take Ali to Guides now. More later.