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....