Giving Up Smoking

I've decided to give up smoking, I've been smoking regularly since I was about 13 so this is a big step for me. I started taking the drug Champix on Wednesday and my quit date is supposed to be Wednesday next week. The drug is working so well however that I've been cutting down since I started taking it and haven't smoked at all so far today (it's about 3.30pm now). It's also been keeping me awake at night as the dose goes up which is annoying, I'm going to go to the doctors tomorrow and try and get some sleeping pills. With the Champix you also get a journal that you read every day and do an activity, it's been surprisingly helpful and has made me realise some things about why I smoke that hadn't occurred to me before.

I was socially awkward as a teenager and was bullied verbally, I never suffered any physical bullying or had my stuff taken out of malice or anything, people were to scared of me to do that it turns out. When I began to smoke it made me slightly more popular with the other smokers in my school and it gave me confidence.

Nowadays smoking has become very unfashionable however, we have to stand outside to smoke and can't stand at the bus stop while we smoke any more etc. This isn't what's made me want to give up smoking though, in fact it made it more of a sub culture for me, I've always liked being different even if it meant I wasn't always popular. There's something fun about going outside a pub to smoke, eases the boredom if you are with people you'd rather not be, it's one thing I'm going to miss.

It is in fact the cost of tobacco and it's impact on my health that is making me stop, tobacco costs a ridiculous amount for what it is now, probably because so many people have given up the government is losing the huge revenue it makes from it. And I'm sick of always having some degree of phlegm in my throat and on my vocal chords, I keep getting this thing where I go to speak and no sound comes out unless I clear my throat, very annoying.

I'll try and blog every day about how I'm doing since my blog has been very quiet recently, and hopefully I'll help inspire others to try and give up too. After all it will probably add years to our lives if we do.