Like Lakasha, I held on to my prescription for a couple of months before I had it filled yesterday. In the meantime I've been reading up on the drug and searching around for the kinds of personal accounts I finally found today, but also just generally procrastinating.
My health plan required me to sign up for an online smoking cessation program in order to get the prescription covered. It looks like a lot of dorky Pscyh 101 woo woo to me, but then again, who am I to be so haughty? I'm the real dork for starting smoking 22 years ago even though I absolutely knew better.
Anyway, one of the exercises the site suggests, and one which I've read about here, is to make a list of reasons why I smoke, and another list of reasons why I am choosing to quit. So here it is:
Why I smoke
- I'm addicted. Duh. So I really enjoy lighting up at the usual really enjoyable moments. I'll do another post on triggers later.
- Smoking still has a coolness factor. Stupid, yeah, and as a prop of disaffected youth it doesn't age well at all. But it has that aura of rebellion, an unholier-than-thou cachet. Not all rebels smoke, but no wannabes take it up for real. It's a nasty habit that requires some level of commitment to acquire.
- Smoking gives me something to do when I don't know how to deal. I am starting to see how these deathsticks have been a means of coping with anxiety.
- I want to live my whole life. I really, really want to be free. I can't justify being enslaved by this habit when I've put so much effort into overcoming childhood baggage and struggling to live my life authentically. It just feels wrong on some spiritual level, for me.
- I want my partner to live a long, healthy life, too. Yes, we both smoke, we're both quitting. It would break my heart a million times over to lose him to a preventable disease.
- I'm afraid of feeling stupid on my deathbed. This might be unavoidable. My last thought on this Earth could be, "I should have looked both ways!" But I don't want it to be, "Yeah, I really did kill myself by smoking for 20, 30, 40 years."
- I'm embarrassed to be a smoker. The smell on my clothes and hair. The bad breath. Being a walking public service announcement.
- My dog HATES smoking. She hides behind the sofa when we smoke inside. I feel guilty as hell about this.
8 comments:
Best of luck to you, Ellie! How wonderful that your insurance covered your Chantix - so far you and I are the only ones I know of. Can I ask who you have for insurance? Eventually I'd like to have a list going of some that cover it. I have Kaiser and had to do their little program, too (basically encouraging emails, etc.). Anyway, I'm wishing you all the best. If you go into it not expecting a miracle but something that helps tremendously with some cooperation, you can do this!
I'll be glad to add you to my list of links to other bloggers, too.
You are gonna do great Ellie!! Chantix is definitely a huge help and it sounds like you are ready and wanting to do this. For whatever reason I found writing my blog to be very helpful, especially in the beginning and the support I have gotten from my new online friends has been invaluable. Keep us updated on how things are going.
Thanks, you two! I have quit cold turkey before, but in my experience I've had wait for just the right state of mind to be able to get through it, and I just can't wait around anymore to get into that headspace.
Maggie, I have the same insurance company as you. They didn't pay for all of it, but it helps a lot, especially since I am still shelling out an unholy amount of cash for cigs every day.
LOL @ Psych 101 woo woo :)
Glad you decided to blog out about your quit. It's soon going to be an army of bloggers quitting smoking with Chantix.
Chantix, the medicine manufactured by Pfizer Incl. is meant for triggering off smoking cessation and as it is an FDA approved quit smoking medicine, you can administer the anti-smoking drug without any hesitation and successfully get rid of nicotine addiction. However, significant chantix tidbits available at http://www.chantixmagic.com clarify that the medicine is meant to be taken only after getting hold of a Chantix prescription from the doctor.
If you are finding it totally difficult to obtain relief and succor from the grip of cigarette addiction, you should go for the anti-smoking medicine. You can purchase chantix online straight from your home by logging in to http://www.chantixonline.com/ an authentic online drug store but for Chantix online chantix to yield effective results for you, always use the drug as per the instructions of the doctor only.
FDA approved chantix (latest smoking cessation pill) leads you to Smoking free healthy life. The Best possible way to quit smoking for clean and healthy world.
Hi,
I am on week two an searching for support. Reading your blog helped....I just wonder how can I be the diamond in the rough without my smokes? It was such a relaxing thing for me to view my gardens while having a cig, to reward myself with w cig when I finished painting a room, when the kids went to school to start my day with coffee and a cig.
Chantix has been a help but I am dealing with an identity crisis...lol!
Best of luck to us both, to redefining who we are without the cigarettes and living to tell the tale!
Post a Comment