Day 9 - Cessation Class 2

Oh well Yvonne picking myself and Carly up at 9:40 for the classes, Yvonne and I are still smoking but Carly has been stopped for a week.
We get to class and we are down 2 or 3 members already and that’s only the 2nd week, this week is a bit different.
This time its more aimed at each individual, its no big deal though; 1st up is a young lad Greig now I used to have a friend like him (I still have him as a friend) but it turns out he only smokes basically Friday to Sunday but he smokes so much he is ill with it till the end of the following week. Greig has decided to go with the lozenges but he is only really taking about 2-3 mid week, which is good, but he doesn't really smoke through the week. Amber now comes out with a Carbon Monoxide reader (CMR), Greig is first and if I remember correctly he gets a 7, I think its between 1-4 your classed as a non-smoker, so that’s a decent reading. Next up its Barry who has been stopped for 3 weeks using patches and seems to be doing really well and his reading on the CMR is 2 which is fantastic. Next is myself and I am still smoking about 12 - 15 a day and my reading is 12 on the CMR, highest so far, so I feel a bit embarrassed, next is Yvonne one of my colleagues who has also decided to go the Champix route but again she is having to wait about a week for an appointment, she reads a 6 on the CMR, so I'm still reading the highest, next up is Mandy, 'ace' she reads higher than me '13', yeah she is still smoking too and not really decided what she's doing, I love the next one, lol, its Erin, she's thinking about reading the Paul Mckenna book , uses the CMR and lol lol she reads 37 !!!! Last up is Carly she missed the 1st week but she has been stopped for a week, cold turkey! and reads 2, which is ideal.

We all laugh and joke about our readings and head back to work...

Yvonne, Carly and myself have a laugh going back as Yvonne calls Erin the fag hag - lol - no malice intended just she was the highest reader !

Day 8 - A New Week

I just love Monday's NOT !!
Do you get such a thing as Xbox finger, I have banned myself from Halo ODST for a few days.
First line this week so the days tend to pass quicker, next meeting tomorrow so we will see how that goes.

Day 7 - Sunday

Not much going on today, quiet one after Friday & Saturday, Cats working so its Xbox 360 most of the day, my oldest playing upstairs and me and the youngest downstairs, great fun except I keep getting beat and he's only 10!!
About 10 cigarettes today 2 days to go till the next cessation meeting.

Day 6 - Saturday The Day After

Yeah it did happen came home fell asleep woke on the settee about 3 in the morning, went to bed then the kids woke me about 7:30 which is fine!! I'm normally up at 5:30 through the week so you could say it was a long lie...
Now the wife (Cat) has claimed she has always wanted a Shitzu for ages but this morning she wakes up looks in last nights paper see's one and decides she's getting it!! Me being a bit hungover say 'please yourself’!!

And she did. This was fine because if I was being honest I wanted another dog maybe not a little fluff ball though.

Anyhow she left with the boys to go to Fyvie to see the puppy and I was heading out to Kintore to see a few mates I hadn't seen in a long while, my last words were I bet you don’t find it, as her sat nav skills are not the best i.e. left is right and right is left!!!!

Kev picks me up and we head off to Kintore, get to his house pop in and see his 3 lovely girls, the youngest I hadn't even seen in a year (her first year) not very happy at that but a weak defence the last time I was out she was in her bed... Poor I know.
Get to the pub in Kintore and we meet Kev's brother Martin, Darren and our other mate Chunk not his real name obviously (I will probably get a punch for that), few beers but only me and Kev drinking as the rest of the guys have the kids, so they eventually head off.

(Oh and in between all that Cat phones 'I can't find the place, I knew it and this is after following the directions given to her 'so I said knock on the nearest door where you think it is - its in the country middle of know where so she must be close I thought, but she didn't have the people’s name or a proper address!! Yeah I know but however she did manage to find it eventually and got this little bundle)

Back to the pub so leaves me and Kev few more beers and then he buys a couple of sneaky red wines listening to my iphone and catching up, great afternoon and we both agree not to leave it so long, I just hope we both stick to that!!
Now the good thing about this afternoon was nobody was smoking and I only went out for one in a 4 hour period and when drinking that is good for me and that wasn't even trying.

Get home little bit of head on, meet the new puppy, very cute, sit down watch X Factor go to sleep.

Day 5 - It's Friday

It's Friday, getting picked up by my mate Simon, which saves waiting on the bus and means I get back earlier and slightly earlier in the pub.Have to be home by 6 though for the wife going to B I N G O !!! Got 2 boys aged 10 & 5, so it's going to be Halo on the Xbox & a movie. But I get a call from the daughter about ten to six saying she isn't going out, so I can stay out a bit... Which is fine but 4 hrs later after drinking with no tea, not the best idea; I know I am going to probably end up crashing out on the settee.

Day 4 - Day After Dr. Call

Not too much to say really still a little dissapointed about the wait in doctor appointment but hey ho I get to smoke a little longer!!

Day 3 - The Doctor Call

Well I should have really expected this, not sure what everyone else's doctor is like but to get an appointment is very difficult!

The call kinda went like this:

Me - I would like to make an appointment please
Surgery - Which Dr.?
Me - I don’t mind
Surgery - Em, the earliest we have is the 1st of October at 3:30pm
Me - Nothing sooner??
Surgery - Is it an emergency?
Me - 'In my head obvioulsy' "If it was an emergency I would be at A & E!!" But no I said no and explained the situation but no joy that was the earliest, end of!!

It was a bit disappointing in a way as after the first meeting you sort of wanted to get started but not much I could do about it.

Roll on next Thursday !!

Day 2 - First Day of Classes

First day at smoking cessation classes, I was a bit dubious going, wandering whether you have to stand up and do the whole introduction rigmarole as I hate speaking in front of people.

Well we arrive waiting in room 301 what was stated in the email we got at work, half an hour goes by no sign of anyone else apart from 5 of us. Turns out we were in the wrong room - great start!

There are ten of us in the classroom and we all get handed out a brochure pack some of which you can see pictured here, quite a bit of reading. Now there was no sort of official stand up and ' Hi my name's Dave and I have been a smoker for 18 years and blah blah blah' thank god!! The woman taking the course is a very nice woman her name is Amber and she has a general chit chat and then goes over the various ways of stopping smoking and how they all work (most of which I have already tried). Most of the products are Nicotine Replacement Treatments (NRT's) which is like your patches, gum, lozenges, nasal spray and the inhalator. Amber just goes over the different ones explaining a little bit about them and how you can actually combine them, which I had never really thought about before but a common combination seems to be the patches with the inhalator. Someone asked about hypnotherapy but she didn't say too much on that as it's not medically proven. So then it was onto Zyban and Champix, now they both seem to work in a similar way, i.e you smoke for the first week while taking them and then pick a stop date in your 2nd week. I didn't really like the side effects associated with the Zyban and someone piped up with a story about someone having a heart attack while using them, now there is side effects with the Champix but they didn't sound quite as bad as the Zyban. We had to kind of indicate what method of stopping we would be most likely to use, myself and one of my colleagues Yvonne wanted to try the Champix, where others preferring NRT or some cold turkey.

Doing the Champix or Zyban requires you getting a voucher from your advisor (Amber) which you then take to your doctor who will have a little chat and write you a prescription for the starter pack.

So that was easy roll on next meeting!!

Day 1 - Bit of Background

I started smoking when I was 19 and while at college one of my friends claimed he found cigarettes in the toilet and 3 of us decided to smoke them and it just led on from there, we would buy a different brand each day, until I finally settled on Marlboro lights. I then discovered Marlboro Menthol while holidaying in Benidorm about 8 - 10 years ago and I just loved that cigarette and have smoked them ever since unless I couldn't get them and would revert back to the lights.

Now I have tried various methods of trying to stop smoking over the years; firstly probably patches which I think I stopped roughly for about a week with but gave in to the weird and wonderful sometimes scary dreams / nightmares and also I used to get a really sore pain in my arm when the patch was there; couple of years later I think I tried out the chewing gum which at the time there was only one flavour and it was disgusting so needless to say I binned that also but it was probably more of an excuse as I don’t think I really wanted to stop then; roughly about 5 years ago my Mum read an article on laser treatment and how some folk had found success on stopping this way, so Mum paid the £100 for the 3 sessions. I went the first day not really knowing what to expect but you get placed in a dark room with a big leather chair and are sat down and a infrared light is aimed at various pressure points on your body i.e. the ear lobe, wrist etc, now I stopped for the 3 days that I had these sessions but after the last one I came out of there thinking what a waste of time and once out of site of his front window I lit a cigarette (weak I know) but again the timing could not of been right. About a year ago now I decided I would try the Inhalator as I thought I would still be using my hands and getting a nicotine hit but again I never really stopped with it I would still have a couple of cigarettes in the morning and when at work I would use the Inhalator and get home have a couple of cigarettes and then you would get to the weekend - couple of pints and that was the inhalator binned!!

Which brings me to the present day where I have signed up for smoking cessation classes through my work, who have agreed to give us time off work (myself and 2 other colleagues).

They begin tomorrow 22/09/09 so we will see what that brings....