The Day I Quit Smoking

Day one – Quitting Smoking

15/09/11

So today is the day I quit smoking, I really want to do this, but I also have these feelings of how am I going to cope without the ciggies…

I catch a train into the city, where I am to be at my appointment by 11am. I arrive early, early enough to have a cappuccino and relax for a bit…I’m not really thinking about how difficult this will be, just know that if I don’t do it now, I will never do it…

I sit and enjoy my coffee and then go to the smoking area to smoke my last 6 cigarettes, yes I know most people wouldn’t think of smoking them one after the other, but I do as if I will shrivel into a dying weed if I can’t get my last fix…I smoke 5 of the 6, fear is starting to set in…

Nathan turns up, he is a friend who will be helping me to Quit today through Hypnosis. (Quit Cigarettes In 60 Minutes. Guaranteed)

I had met Nathan a few weeks earlier at a business event and he had said he could help and gave me his card with a special price for me…I love to save money, so I knew I would be calling him to give this a go… I was always a little skeptical, if this could work…I had tried hypnosis many years ago and it had done nothing…

So Nathan advises me that he needs to prepare the room and that when I finish my last cigarette to come up…

He leaves my side, there are many smokers around me, that I feel like telling, “I’m going to quit smoking today”…yes that is right today…yes I’m going to be cutting my throat and will never ever survive properly in this world ever again and I will always envy you, yes you who are stuck in the addiction…but I love you all…I feel like I’m about to take one for the team.

 AM I READY TO QUIT?

I know that Nathan is waiting for me, so I enter the building and take the lift up to the floor where this will all be taking place…am I scared? Not really…Am I worried? a little…Can I do this? Well I’m about to find out…the lift doors open and now I have nowhere to run…well except for the toilet…I look at myself in the mirror, asking myself if this is what I want???

As I leave the Ladies, I hear the little voice inside me say…you have to try Narelle.

I enter the room with Nathan, he explains to me exactly what will be happening today. When he asks if I have understood all that he said he asks for me to sit in ‘THE CHAIR’…holy shit…can I do this…my mind is racing…I move from the safety of my chair to ‘THE CHAIR’. There is a cushion on it to which I hold onto tightly as if like a scared child about to face their worst fears…I am afraid!

He starts his ritual, my mind is taking it all in, my eyes are closed and I am listening intently…so far so good…but he starts to gallop away from me with words I can’t keep up…what is happening, I’m trying to agree with everything…I want to say slow down, but that would be rude of me to stop him here…we continue…I cry…the time has come to say goodbye…So goodbye cigarettes…goodbye to you, yes, you have been my friend for a long, long time…little did I realize how much my cigarettes had become my best friend…they had been there through thick and thin with me, good times, bad times, happy and sad time, cigarettes were always there for me…

The session was over, did I feel any different…no, not really, full of emotion perhaps…only time would tell how this will affect me.

Nathan and I went and enjoyed a coffee together, we chatted for an hour or so…From where I was sitting I could see the smokers on the other side enjoying their addictions…it was great to be able to sit and talk for awhile, it took my mind off smoking…and anyway…I was a non-smoker now…right???

It takes about 50minutes for me to get home taking the train, so I didn’t worry about the cravings as I would not smoke on a train anyway…I arrived home, feeling very drained and fragile…

WHAT HAVE I DONE?

What had I done, I was now feeling a little lost, emotions were heavily hanging from my eyes, my cousin asked me how I was, and I cracked…I went off like a space rocket on lift off…I even yelled at my girls, not that I remember much of this, as my eyes were stinging with tears…I want to smoke…please…tell me I didn’t just quit…I go to the computer thinking I can lose myself there…the tears flow…I can not control them now…my tears run a river down my face…

No one comes near me, I know I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near me either…I think they realise how difficult this is for their mum and they stay away from me…I realize now it is 11pm…where has the time gone…it’s as if the last few hours were lost, never to be found again…I’m very tired, my eyes ache from the tears that have fallen…I need to sleep.

>