Some background: A month or so ago I scheduled a routine physical because I wanted to talk to the doc about what could be done to help me quit smoking. I've never come close to quitting before. I've recently developed a minor smoker's cough, something I never had before unless I had a cold. I'm tired much more than I should be, I think. The fact that it would save me at $150 a month is a factor, especially with now another car payment. But mostly it's my age...mortality takes on a very different meaning now, I guess.
So I talked to the doc on Friday. Of course she thinks it's a great idea. She scheduled me for a chest X-ray, which I took this morning, just to take a look. The biggest thing is that she gave me a prescription for a new quit smoking drug called Chantix. It's supposed to work different than the others in the past in that it doesn't contain nicotine. "When you smoke, the nicotine you inhale binds to receptors in the brain. This releases a chemical called dopamine, which gives a feeling of pleasure but only for a short time, and the body wants to repeat this feeling of pleasure. Based on researach, it is believed the Chantix works by activating these receptors to a lesser degree and blocking nicotine from attaching to them..."
So it's a pill with escalating dosages. You start taking it the first week and you can still smoke. You're supposed to pick a quit date and start taking the pills 7 days before that to build up before you actually quit. So I'm picking it up tonight, start taking the pills tomorrow morning. So the quit date will be like next Tuesday.
This will give me another week, on top of all the mental preparation I've already done, to be in the right frame of mind to do this. Almost 30 years of a habit is a long time but I think I'm finally ready. I'm going to start scaling back to get in the habit of starting to quit and keep going over all the reasons why I need to and want to.
But I'm also bringing you all into this as well. You can be my support group.
