Patches

Two women I know have given up smoking. The widow with three kids from Papier Mache Towers, and a teacher at my son's school.

Both are using patches.

The widow woke up on New Years day and realised she was spending up to £100 a week on her habit. She smoked everywhere in her flat, she told me, asked herself what she was doing to her children. She went to her doctor the next day.

The teacher said it's time to stop, she doesn't know why she does it anymore. The expense was a reason as well. The ready rolled sticks are mighty expensive. Over £6 for a pack of 20!

Both still had cravings. The psychological addiction is what's obscene.

I won't use patches. I want to shove the poison in my body, I don't want it intravenously dripping in, all day long (widow takes hers off at night, it gives her nightmares she said).

Four days and Nico Teen is out of your body. Yes, I was clear when I decided to start again.

I'm going to do it the Easyway!

It's not easy though is it? My friend Peggy discovered she had throat cancer last year and I saw her yesterday, in remission, fag in hand. When she told me she had the cancer she looked at me then at Nico Teen between her fingers, back at me again, a far away look in her eyes.

"Who am I to judge?" I'd said to her. Only the week before I'd sat next to a smoker outside Sainsbury's who told me she had cancer of the colon.

I was going to blog about it all back then but didn't know how.

People die of cancers who have never smoked. These women, my father, are still alive and thank God for that.

Me? Well I told myself I've smoked for two and a half decades. I'm going to try and stop for two and a half more. If I want to take it up again when I'm a pensioner, then I will, if I'm lucky enough to still be around by then, it's a choice I'll have.

That's the thing, you never know. The key is to live for today. Well, actually, if you read Erkhart Tolle, the key is to live for Now!

Good luck to all of you letting the ciggie go. Try not to think about it and drink lots of water!