Cigarettes & Me

Cigarettes & Me

The following post was commissioned by iCoach, the free online stop smoking tool.

Smoking.  You don’t see it so much anymore, do you?  I remember when you could not step inside a pub without being enveloped by a fog of smoke.  In restaurants, people would finish eating their meals and then light up right there at the table.  Decorative ashtrays adorned coffee tables in homes all over the country.

When the Greek God(zilla) and I first met, we embodied the oxymoron that is the social smoker.  However when the smoking ban was enforced and smokers were made to nip outside and stand in the rain every time they fancied a quick drag, ‘social’ smoking quickly lost its appeal.

For someone like me, who proudly lists sitting as one of my favourite activities, having to get up to go out for a smoke was a real drag.  So, I stopped doing it and have never looked back.  Yes, I am THAT lazy.

It was not quite as easy for the Greek God(zilla) and he took a bit longer to be completely smoke free.  He would buy a pack of cigarettes, smoke 2 or 3 over a few pints, then wake up in the morning full of regret and throw the rest of the pack in the bin.

The day that we found out I was pregnant, was the beginning of the end for the Greek God(zilla)’s relationship with the cigs.  It did not happen overnight, but eventually he was able to quit with the help of our lovely hypnobirthing practitioner, who gave him a one-on-one smoking hypnosis session on my due date.  Let’s just say, her promise of pain-free nicotine withdrawal had a far more satisfactory result than her promise of a pain-free birth.  OH.MY… I was quite unprepared for the sheer force of the contractions; and as for being quiet throughout, I could not say the word EPIDURAL quickly enough, or loudly enough.

We all got there in the end though.

Kicking the habit is not an easy thing to do at all, and there can be horrid cravings and withdrawal symptoms to cope with.  So if you are thinking of quitting smoking, but need a little bit of help and encouragement to get you on your way, then perhaps check out iCoach.  It’s a completely free online tool and is not just intended for those who want to quit smoking either, as it also aims to inform those who are not quite ready to stub out their last cigarette yet.

I don’t think I will ever go back to them again.  Occasionally, when I see a group of friends huddled together in a doorway with a glass of wine in one hand and a smoke in the other, I might feel a pang of nostalgia; and for the briefest moment, tell myself that just the one won’t hurt.  But then just as quickly, the moment passes and it’s gone again.

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Disclosure: this post was commissioned by iCoach

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3 Comments

  1. October 18, 2013 / 12:51 PM

    The day I found out I was pregnant was the last time I smoked too. I then found it easy despite years and years of previous failed attempts. Had even tried hypnotism. I still get cravings though 🙁

  2. Svanna
    October 21, 2013 / 6:10 PM

    My husband quit smoking the day he found out I was pregnant. He didn’t tell me until a month or so later but he just decided that was that. I guess sometimes it takes something extremely important to make you determined to stop!

    • Grenglish
      Author
      October 21, 2013 / 7:40 PM

      It does! You have to really really want to stop to do it successfully and I can’t think of a better reason than having a baby!

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