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Today is day 16 for me off the cigarettes. It hasn’t been all stress, coughing, headaches and mood-swings – although all of those have been there to some degree.

They say the first two weeks are the hardest (… don’t they?) – Frankly I’d extend that to 3 or 4 weeks – and I was never a heavy smoker. They also say that each cigarette is 5 minutes off your life (… I always used the excuse that those minutes were at the END of your life and were usually pretty shite minutes anyway, but that was a piss-poor excuse at best).

Anyway, this recent ad, from Nicorette – is VERY true… My own poor agitated brain has been jumping up and down like crazy – just like this:

… and it’s a hard thing to deal with. With the agitation and the craving comes occasional migraines and times where it’s hard to think straight. The main difference is that I do believe it can be done with will-power alone;- I’ve never used patches, gum or any other nicotine replacement therapy. I’ve just gone “cold turkey”, as they say.

Mind you, as I said, I wasn’t a heavy smoker to begin with – but after 13 years or so, I’d definitely build up SOME mental dependancy on them. On the up-side, after a week or two of having a pretty bad cough (my lungs clearing the crap out – I presume), I’m breathing much easier now and actually managed to take the dog for a walk yesterday without coming home breathless and tired.

Oh, and things taste better… although that can be a bad thing too – I was already about a stone heavier than I’d like to be at the start of the new year – now I’m 9 pounds heavier again!

Oh well, I guess resolution no. 2 will help there…