One Chantix was all it took, I quit smoking

by
Chaplain Kathie

Right off the bat, I am not suggesting this is a miracle drug that had stopped me from smoking. It was more the fear of it than anything else that did it.

After coving Chantix horror stories on this blog, but also knowing my elderly aunt and uncle both quit on Chantix, I knew the pros and cons about it.

Yesterday I took the first pill, planning on quitting on the 18th. I smoked the way I usually do and went off to do some errands. I started to feel odd. Nothing I can put my finger on and certainly nothing serious, but just "off". Betting this was more psychosomatic I opted for the safest thing to do. I pulled into Publix parking lot, dumped my car ashtray into a napkin, grabbed the last couple of cigarettes I had in the car and then tossed them into the barrel. I came home after picking up a few things, then tossed out the last pack I had, the ashtrays from each room and began a slow, painful process of wondering what to do with my two extra fingers.

It's really amazing what you can accomplish with a handicap. Two fingers forever tied up supporting the crutch of adulthood when it very well could have been my thumb instead. Most days, that was exactly what I was doing, except while a thumb could have given me buck teeth, the cigarette could have given me cancer, drove me deeper into poverty, stunk up my whole house so that it would have to be pressure washed to get the stink out along with everything else.

Face it. I have a stressful life, but most of us do. We think that smoking calms us down, but then when you really think about it, we avoid the truth. How comforting is it to open you purse and find out there is not another pack in there and it's 2:00 in the morning? How comforting is it to be on an airplane for the 4th hour with a screaming kid behind you and you still have another hour to go before you get to wait for the other thirty rows to get off before you can even stand up? Not very comforting is it? Oh, what about when you're driving and your car cigarette lighter doesn't work anymore and you don't have a lighter or matches anywhere? Not much fun.

I usually pulled into a gas station or CVS to buy a lighter in that case. Pretty much explains why I'm finding them all over the house now that I don't need one.

It isn't very comforting to be sitting in a job interview and know the person with your future in her hands smells the fear as surly as she smells the Newports. I smoked Capri 120, but you get the point.

While my husband and my daughter say they're proud of me, I'm not proud of me because had it not been for the fact I was shelling out between $200 and $300 a month, I would still be smoking.

My skin is crawling, there is some kind or weird electrical pulse traveling around my body and I'm wondering how long my shampoo smelled so good. The inside of my left cheek feels like sandpaper because I keep biting it instead of eating what I don't want to eat and I still can't figure out how to type on the keyboard without a cigarette sticking out between my index and middle finger.

I started to smoke when I was 18 and now I'm 50 and aware what it's like to be stupid when I add up how much money I spent over the years on puffs of smoke. Gee, I still want one even after all of this.