So Far, So Good...

Everyone's been asking me how the "no smoking" thing is going. Well, I figured I'd go ahead and put it all out there: It's going great.

At 10:53am on January 16, 2012, I put out my last cigarette. To be completely honest, I didn't know if I was gonna' make it. Lord knows I've tried in the past,and I crashed and burned time after time. This time, though, I think I'm in it for the long haul.

I sure as Hell haven't done it on my own, though. The people who ask me how it's going are genuinely supportive of my goal to be a non-smoker, and I'm pretty proud of the fact that I can say I haven't had a cigarette in 43 days. But, we seriously need to give credit where credit is due.

Let's hear it for better living through modern chemistry:

These are the ones doing the heavy lifting: Wellbutrin and "The Patch"...

I started on the Wellbutrin a full two weeks before starting on the patch. Wellbutrin is an anti-depressant. Take cigarettes away from a smoker, and he gets depressed. Possibly even violent (or so I hear). So, the Wellbutrin gets prescribed to counter the sure-to-be-impending depression of not smoking. The idea is to let it build up in the system which, so says the brochure, will decrease the cravings.

Well, it didn't. I was taking 150mg a day, and I was smoking like a chimney. Granted, I was happy all the time, but the cravings never really subsided. I got them to double the dosage. If that didn't work, I'd go with Chantix.

I was completely convinced that it wasn't working. Then, one day; I think it was January 13 (a Friday, no less) I went out in the morning for a smoke. The next thing I knew, it was 3:20pm. I hadn't eaten lunch, and I hadn't even thought about having a cigarette.

Maybe they were doin' the trick.

A few days later, I added the patch into the mix. As hokey as I always thought the patch was, I have to admit, they work. When I've been on the 21mg patch for six weeks, I'll step it down to 14mg for two weeks, then to 7mg for two weeks. There are no lower dosage patches. Once I get done with the 7mg patches, I'm done.

Completely.

So, there it is. The e-mails and phone calls and private messages are all so very much appreciated, but I wanted to get all this information out there...