Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em...

For the past eight days, I have been taking a prescription called Champix. It is the newest "quit smoking" drug. I was a little leary about taking it. I figured that it was going to be similar to those weight loss pills that claim you can lose thirty pounds and then, in very small print on the back of the box, it says, "when combined with our diet and exercise plan". So I thought Champix was going to say something like, "when combined with duct tape placed across the mouth". I nearly choked when the total of the prescription was $60.00 for two weeks worth of pills (and you have to stay on the pills for ten weeks!). But then I realized Mike and I spend that on cigarettes in three days...yes, you read that correctly....we spend $20 a day on smokes. Poof...money literally going up in smoke. So, so stupid...

Allow me to fill you in on a little of my smoking history so that you can understand the true awesomeness of this wonder drug. I have smoked since I was 14. I tried quitting only one other time and that was in 2004. I was bitchy, irritable, edgy, jittery, short tempered and I consumed way more calories than I ever should. That was the longest two hours of my life.

Over the past 14 years of smoking, I have become a die-hard smoker. I am the sort of smoker who begins to panic when my pack reaches just under the half way mark. I am the sort of smoker who is standing outside in the freezing cold 45 seconds after I've woken up so that I can start my day with a lung full of crap. I am the sort of smoker who will spend $60 on gas to drive by myself to the lake so that I can smoke for that two hour drive. I am the sort of smoker who measures travelling distances by the number of cigarettes it takes to get somewhere (e.g. Wakaw is only a three cigarette drive from here). I am the sort of smoker who is already putting her coat on in a restaurant before I'm even finished my meal so that I can "enjoy" that post-meal cigarette. I am the sort of smoker who chain smokes five cigarettes in a half hour telephone conversation. I am the sort of smoker who will smoke two cigarettes on my way to work in the morning (it's only a 5 minute drive...you do the math) so that it hopefully holds me over until my lunchtime cigarette. Long story short...I am severely addicted to cigarettes. Scratch that...I was severely addicted to cigarettes.

In the past eight days, my desire to smoke has totally disappeared. I kid you not. AND I'm not all jittery and freaking out and edgy and bitchy. That being said, I should make it clear that I am still smoking. Why? Because there are two packs left in the carton in my freezer and as the saying goes, smoke 'em if you got 'em. I have, however, severely cut down on my smoking. In between 3:30pm and 8:30pm, I would have normally had a cigarette every half hour or so (so roughly ten smokes). Yesterday, my total cigarettes in those five hours - two. When these packs run out, there is no doubt in my mind that I will be a non-smoker (and none-too -soon either...we've got baby making plans in our near future! Yea!). When most people quit, they have to wrestle with the cravings and find things to do with their hands or find things to satisfy their oral fixations. Not me. With zero desire to smoke, I don't think I will have to deal with any of that (but I have been known to eat crow in the past so we shall see!). Now if only they could create an anti-eating drug...