Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Celebrating an Ending and New Beginnings

I'm celebrating the 10th anniversary of the ending of my life as a smoker, and the beginning of a new life as an ex-smoker. This post also serves as a celebration of beginning my first blog! Quitting smoking was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. As Mark Twain said "quitting smoking is easy - I've done it a thousand times". While I did not quit a thousand times, I probably tried at least 20 times. I tried quitting cold turkey (numerous times), aversion therapy, hypnosis, acupuncture, the patch and group therapy. I finally succeeded by entering a clinical trial for a drug at a cancer hospital. I was given a nicotine patch and a pill to take every day. The pill was supposed to relieve anxiety and nervousness (it did not). Particpants were required to meet with the trial leader once a week and fill out a long questionnaire. As it turned out, I received a placebo, but I was able to finally quit. Success at last!

I was one of those smokers who had to plan my whole life around where I could smoke. In the early days of my life as a smoker you could smoke any place - department stores, doctor's offices - even hospitals. Soon, however, restrictions started being put in place and my world became smaller and smaller as there were fewer and fewer places to smoke outside of my home and car. It has been very liberating to finally free myself from those restrictions!

And so on to a new beginning as a blogger!