12/31/2006 - NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION, QUIT SMOKING
Well, here it is, the end of another year and that can only mean one thing - resolution time. Though I may be speaking too early, I think it's probably safe to say that for the first time, I actually stayed true and committed to my 2006 New Year's resolution: to stay out of the hospital for one full calendar year! You may snicker, but that's easier said than done with me. Picture Gerald Ford with a chainsaw. I'm clumsier even than that. So this year, I've avoided chainsaws, motorcycles, evil women and all those other things that can hurt you. But, admittedly, I've been injured in many innocuous ways as well, so I've really had to keep one eye over my shoulder for pianos falling from third-story balconies, etc. So long as I make it through today, I would have made my resolution for 2006! There will be champagne at midnight, so long as I don't put my eye out with the cork.
Ah, but now it's 2007. In one of the "About the Author" sections in one of my books, it lists "quitting smoking" among my many hobbies. It was a kind of tongue-in-cheek inclusion, but it's also been very true. I'm 42 years old and I know that it's time, after dozens of tries through the years, to kick this habit. Sometimes I'm successful for three months, ten months, five years one time. But for some reason, I've always gone back to the habit.
I'm near desperate with this now. I've tried the patch, tried hypnosis (which actually worked very well!) and tried everything else, short of sewing my lips shut with baling wire. Now, my doctor has prescribed some sort of Welbutrin knock-off, an anti-depressant. Reading the long list of cautions, possible side-effects, etc., I don't think I want to take the medication. I don't want an anti-depressant to give me thoughts of suicide. I don't want seizures or blackouts, or any of the other possible side effects. So I think I'll give it another good Christian go with the patch.
What have you tried? What really works? Is there anything out there that really works? I know that most of it is upstairs in your head but no matter how determined and committed I get, there's still that little siren song that plays up in the attic at the most inopportune times. You know the one. If you're a smoker, you've heard it to.