A major milestone (for me) went by silently

It occurs to me that the 10th anniversary of when I quit smoking went by (last month) and I didn't even notice. Did I ever tell you the story about how I quit? I couldn't find anything in the blog archives, so bear with me if you've heard this one already.

I had less than a year before I was to conclude my 20 year contract with the military and I knew it was time to quit smoking soon. Darlene works with cancer patients and had been gently lobbying me to quit. I was getting to the point where I was ready and was thinking that in preparation for the life altering change that was awaiting me post-military, quitting smoking might be good practise for altering behaviour. Because as I learned, that is the key to quitting - behaviour modification.

First, the doctor had me keep track of all the times I had a cigarette and log the reason for each smoke. Every smoke has a purpose. Some are rewards, some are due to peer pressure (smoking with friends), some are from boredom, some are pure habit, the list goes on. The key is to plan to replace each of the situations with a new behaviour. So instead of a smoke, I planned to end a meal with a walk. Instead of a smoke resulting from boredom, I planned to reach for a bottle of water. One of the main reasons quitters don't succeed is that they neglect to replace the act of smoking for a specific purpose with something else. The behaviour is so ingrained that it overpowers you unless you modify that behaviour.

Once I was prescribed Buproprion (still smoking), my whole world changed. Buproprion (Zyban) makes you goofy - at least, it did for me. It's an anti-depressant after all. It changes your brain chemistry to make you feel the same way you would post-cigarette-buzz. On Buproprion, that buzz you get from the first drag of a smoke..... is gone. It's freaking spooky. On the drug, the act of smoking becomes an empty gesture - no effect at all. By day 2, I was lighting up, taking 2 drags of a cigarette, and getting nothing out of it at all, and subsequently stubbing it out. By day 4, I had my last cigarette, on the front porch of my house. At 8pm. I actually quit 3 days before my official 'quit ceremony' day. That made the doctor very nervous. So he kept me on Buproprion for 12 weeks. No matter. The program worked and here we are 10 years later.

10 years. I deserve a celebratory treat for that I think. A nice 46" High Definition LCD TV would do the trick. Oh yeah. As soon as I start my next job..... colour it done.