I'm sorry Mr Patel..

Mr Patel is the very friendly chap that runs the corner shop across the street from me, and instinctively upon seeing me walk into his shop, reaches behind him for 20 Regal King Size. Saves on unnecessary conversation you see. I of course have to explain to him that this won't be required any more, so today it'll just be a pint of milk please. "You'll be buying a bloody cow next" he replied.

Well, first week over, and in all honesty, it's been pretty uneventful really. My last cigarette smoked was on Monday night, and I can't really say I've had any strong cravings either, a few mood swings here and there, but that's pretty much business as usual with me. This is turning out to be much easier than I both imagined, and remember it been from the last time I "stopped". One thing that may have made life a little easier is not been at work for a few days this week, which took care of the routine side of things.
Admittedly however, there have been a few moments where I've forgotten that I don't smoke any more and have thought to myself "might go for a fag" and then remembered what I'm doing. Well, I guess old habits die hard, but it could be and probably should be a lot harder than just "forgetting" from time to time.

I've been noticing a few things recently since I stopped smoking too, some good, some not so good, such as I can taste and smell things a little bit more (not always a good thing, especially when travelling on public transport), I can smell smoke on other people really strongly (again, not good, as that's how I used to smell), I'm noticing other people smoking a lot where ever I seem to go. It's a little early just yet to start talking about benefits to my health that I'm noticing, plus I was struck down with manfluenza last night, which I seem to remember getting the last time I stopped smoking too; must be some weird immune system thing from depriving my body of a shed load of chemicals that it's been accustomed to for the last ten years.

On a financial note, I notice that I go to cash machines less frequently, and as I'm no longer handing over a ten pound note to Mr Patel every couple of days, I never seem have any change in my pockets any more, which will begin to annoy the ladies in my works canteen I'm sure. Whilst we're on the subject of money, I've also been keeping track of how much money I've saved since I first stopped, based roughly on the days of the week I'd usually buy a packet of fags, times by roughly the cost of a 20 deck. So far I've saved a whopping £31.50!! This both surprises me and doesn't surprise me at the same time - it's a lot of money when I actually stop and think about how much £6 here and there adds up to, but then again as I mentioned in my last post, the last time I stopped I saved enough to fund my snowboarding [note to self: must do more snowboarding].

I also mentioned in my last post that I roughly worked out that the cost of smoking, and in turn the money saved by stopping smoking, roughly equated to the repayments on a small car. So, to combat the feeling I often get of money burning a hole in my pocket, the above is exactly what I've just done; I've gone and bought this:
So after a conversation with a salesman that went something along the lines of "Hello sir, can I help you?" - "Well, I'd like a car please, but I've got no money, so I don't know, can you help me?", I am now the relatively pleased owner of a 2006 Fiesta "Style", and yes, that really is the colour I've gone for. Lovely. Well, it beats the colour of rust that I'd become used to with my last trusty steed. So, no turning back now, my fag money will be paying for this for the next four years.

And on that bombshell, goodnight!

From the Big Smoke to the No Smoke

Forgive me Bloggers and Bloggees alike as I have sinned, it has been a while since my last confession. A long while in fact. The last time I wrote was last year, back in October, as I whinged on and on about a little run I'd gotten myself all worked up about. As that was last year now, I'm not about to re-enact the events in the form of witty literature, mainly as I can't be witty, and I can't remember a lot of it.

So at this stage you may be asking yourself "hang on, if he's not here to tell tales of blood, sweat, tears and vomit from last year, does he have another ridiculous fitness challenge ahead of him?". Well since you ask, no, of course I don't, I did my run, what do you want from me? I'll be honest, I've not done a single bit of running since October last year. Well that's not quite true, I ran across a road on my way home from work this evening, but that's pretty much it. Oh and by the way, as to be clear on this; no, I have not started walking the 1.3 miles to work and back. I would drive, and have done pretty much every day since last October, but my car ran out of MOT at the weekend, and it's not a case of 'if' it fails, it quite categorically will fail, it's just a matter of how badly. So until I find some replacement wheels, I'll be walking, but to counter this inconvenient lack of petrol powered transport, I've booked some time off work. Yes, I'm that lazy. So, as we've established, absolutely no running done, and as little walking as possible. Oh, no cycling either, but that's mainly down to a problem with my bike which I've not got round to fixing yet, but I actually do quite like cycling, off road obviously. It's not all bad however, I have kept up to doing a few weights here and there, and since I last wrote I have a new housemate, whose bedroom we've turned into a quite respectable gym complete with some form of multi-gym lat pulldown / peck deck affair, and a weights bench. Anyway I'm detracting from the point quite severely, so I'll get back to it now;

THE POINT
As we've established at this point, I don't have a ridiculous fitness related challenge ahead, but I do have a challenge of sorts ahead (well, I say ahead, I'm actually a day late writing this blog; I've started already), and once again I'm using this blog as an outlet to vent spleen, to motivate myself if it starts getting tough, and most importantly, because I'll have to admit failure if I do (fail, that is) and I do not like admitting defeat. So, the challenge: I'm stopping smoking.
Yes, that's right, stop laughing and pay attention. I say "stopping", I've actually stopped. As from now. Right now. There are lots of reasons to stop smoking, the main ones are the obvious ones; the cost, and the implications to my health. There are lots of less obvious reasons and more personal reasons I'm choosing to stop; the fact that it's far less sociable these days to smoke that it was when I picked up the habit, in all honesty its a fairly unsociable and quite frankly disgusting habit, and I don't like the fact that my girlfriend has to kiss what must taste and smell like an ashtray, and it's an amalgamation of these that have driven me to this decision. Overall, there are lots of reasons to give up smoking, but one very important reason to not quit: Smoking is cool. Fact. Just ask this handsome and perfectly healthy fellow;





























Homoerotic. Probably best you don't ask this man however;



















Lovely. The throaty mess I mean, not the chaps spectacular facial hair arrangement. So with this indisputable fact in mind, you may well be wondering why I've chosen to quit, and why this exact moment to quit, after all, I've had the last ten years (give or take) to quit. Well firstly, this hasn't been a rushed decision, I've thought about it a lot over the years, and I find myself thinking about it more frequently as I get older. As I mentioned above, there are many very good reasons to quit smoking (with the list getting longer the more I think about it). The decision for me to stop at this moment was actually made by my housemate - He has also made the decision to stop. "Aaahh" I hear / imagine you say, "now he's making sense".

Yes fellow bloggers, that's correct, I'm back, and changed I mostly certainly have not, nor have I grown up since I last wrote. I still enjoy a good challenge, I'm still as pointlessly competitive as ever, and more importantly, I will still cut off my nose to spite someone else's

Fast forward five or so years and we end up somewhere roughly about, well, now. But lets go back a few days [yes, we do have to]. A few months ago a new housemate moved in with me, and since then we've been talking about throwing a house party. We eventually got round to doing this last weekend, but a few days before the weekend James uttered the immortal words "I think I'm going to stop smoking". We've all been there. I don't believe there's a smoker out there that hasn't at some stage in their life taken the sacred vow, at least once or twice. Rather sensibly, James decided to postpone the quitting to the day after the house party, knowing full well there was not a chance he could be surrounded by smokers at his own house and stand firm on his decision. This was a wise move. Somewhere towards the end of the evening I enquired if James was still intending to commit to his bold claims, to which he confirmed he was, in the morning. Excellent, a challenge, I'm in. Sacred oath uttered, and I'm signed up for quitting, with the added bonus of an element of competition (even if I have invented it). Now I should point out at this stage that I'm not stating or promising to never have a cigarette ever again, because that would be a lie. When I talk about quitting I mean I'm quitting the routine smoking, the habit smoking, the boredom smoking, the excuse smoking, the smoking through the day, or at home smoking, and the smoking for the sake of smoking… smoking. I dare say I'll partake in having a crafty fag with my mates at the pub now and again, and that I'm absolutely fine with, and don't have any intentions of either making false promises about or making excuses for. It's the full time commitment to smoking that I'm concerned with quitting.

So now we've covered the history of stopping, the oath of stopping and the reasons for stopping once more, we get to the actual act of stopping. I'm a little late in writing this blog now, so allow me to quickly recap the last couple of days:

DAY ONE (well, day 0.5 really)
Bang on schedule, the morning after the night before, Sunday arrives. Quitting day. James rears his head at some stage in the morning to be greeted with such cheery sights as a broken chair, stale breadcakes [yes, "breadcakes", it's the proper word, and we're not getting into this argument now] and empty beer cans everywhere, and me, obviously, which to my delight I remind him of this being stopping day. James grunts something about how he has a few fags left from yesterday and will stop once those are gone. To be honest, this suits me just fine as I've got a couple left too, and I don’t want to be wasteful and throw perfectly good fags away - it's a sin after all. Plus there's no way I'm going to test myself by stashing them away. Just no. No matter, a quick trip into town and these are soon gone anyway, with the last one smoked somewhere around lunchtime. Now it begins.
Rather disappointingly, the rest of Sunday was somewhat uneventful. No real stories to tell here I'm afraid. No cold sweats, no irritability, no temper tantrums, no persistent nail biting, no nothing. How terribly dull of me. I feel somewhat of a disappointment at this stage, having no tales of woe to tell for the purposes of your entertainment. I did manage to entertain myself throughout the day by winding James up, by persistently asking him "dying for a fag yet?" at frequent intervals. Well, it amused me. I'll be honest, there were a few occasions where I thought to myself "could do with a fag" but this was purely the habit talking, and was easily ignored.
By the end of day 0.5, I was feeling more disappointed than triumphant, like I'd geared myself up for some massive challenge but was instead delivered a bit of an anti-climax, of sorts. Ah well, not to worry, Monday usually follows Sunday, which means a return to work; a place where my smoking is more routine than ever.

THE REAL DAY ONE
This, for me, was where the real challenge would begin, the challenge with myself to break the routine fags, the fags I have at such precise times of the day you could set your watch by them, and my management actually purposely schedule any meetings I need to attend to conflict with these times. It's true. The working day would usually start with a swift fag on my back doorstep before setting off for work. Not today though, as I am without car at the moment, so walked to work, and without a cigarette in my hand. I'll be honest, I did actually miss smoking at this stage, something to make the walk to work a little more enjoyable, in a miniscule and quite frankly disgusting way.
I did however obtain a new goal on the walk to work, well maybe, I need to put pen to paper and figure out the feasibility really, but as mentioned, I am without car at present, so am keeping my eyes peeled for a replacement steed. On my short walk to work there are quite a lot of car forecourts, and I just happened to spot a little Mazda something or other plastered in vinyl stickers that said something about "No deposit, £125 a month". That, rather disturbingly when you work it out, is roughly what I spend on packets of cigarettes a month. Frightening isn’t it, that's £1500 a year! Now I just happen to have 'No Deposit' and by knocking fags on the head, I could technically have £125 a month too. Hmmm.
The rest of Monday went without incident really, I even went on a couple of smoke breaks with my workmate, and didn't have a fag or even particularly miss having a fag. Doing well here. I decided to entertain myself through the day by winding James up via the joys of email, with such conversations as;

From: Davis, Daniel [mailto:Daniel.Davis2@virginmedia.co.uk] Sent: 26 July 2010 10:11
To: James Davies
Subject:
Had a fag yet?

From: James Davies [mailto:James.Davies@stivesdirect.com] Sent: 26 July 2010 10:11
To: Davis, Daniel
Subject: RE:
Nope and hadn’t thought about it till you mentioned it. Have you?

From: Davis, Daniel [mailto:Daniel.Davis2@virginmedia.co.uk] Sent: 26 July 2010 10:14
To: James Davies
Subject: RE:
Nah, just been out for a fag break with my mate but didn't have a fag. Piece of piss this stopping business ;)

This kept me going, although to be honest, I did have a few moments throughout the day, such as lunchtime and the walk home from work, where if I'd have had a sneaky cigarette stashed away somewhere, I may have cheated and had one, but I didn't, so I didn't, and that's really all there is to it. I'd been looking forward to a beer all day at work, and as soon as I was in the front door, the jacket was hung up and a bottle of San Miguel left over from the house party was cracked open, "just to take the edge off" I joked with myself as I drank alone.

I'd arranged for a friend to come over earlier in the day. A recently stopped-smoking friend. More accurately, a recently stopped-smoking friend that had struck a deal with herself to only smoke socially. Apparently, having a few drinks at my house and splitting a pizza is classed as 'social', therefore smoking was permitted. This was bad. At about 9.30pm, she declared she was off for a fag. I followed, and also had a crafty fag. Once again, this was something of an anti-climax however, the whole deal was very unremarkable. I didn't wheeze out a smoky sigh of delight upon inhaling the blue fumes of smouldering foliage, nor did I hang my head in shame at accepting defeat, as I'd already stated that I was prepared to make exception for occasional social fags. It was very something and nothing, and all in all, it made absolutely no difference to anything either way. The only thing that having the crafty fag seemed to make a difference to was I'd have to reset my counter since I last had a fag. Shame as I'd gone a whole 33hours. I was so disappointed with the complete lack of anything at all that I actually declined the next offer of a cigarette, I couldn’t really see the point to be fair. What is happening to me? Why is this massive challenge I'd geared myself up for such a dissapointment? I know it's only day one, but still, I expected something, something more than just a little anxiety. This is just pathetic to be blunt. If I had a dummy, I'd spit it out at this stage.

Of course, I've not yet informed James of my late night smoke last night. It's for his own good you see, can't have him using my extremely dissapointing smoke as an excuse for him to have one. Anyway, it's day two tomorrow, so maybe that will be more "fun".