Broken Habits

I have an announcement to make.

A-HEM...

I am now OFFICIALLY a non-smoker. Our bank account is heaving a f-ing MASSIVE sigh of relief.

If you've been visiting my little dog'n'pony show for a while, you might recall me talking about an anti-smoking drug called "Champix". I started the course of tablets WAY back in September, and, after one little slip-up, I am now both ciggie-free AND Champix-free.

When I started taking the pills, I figured that it would be something of an onerous journey, but one that would provide a few humourous and/or interesting blog posts. The reality, though, is that the only really interesting aspect of the whole shebang is how utterly uneventful it has been.

The idea with Champix (or Chantix for my Seppo friends) is that you start taking a low dose of the drug, working up toward a full dose after a week. You are supposed to choose a day somewhere between day 8 and day 14, at which point you stop smoking completely while taking the tablets for up to three months. The Champix works by stopping withdrawal symptoms, and by the time the tablets run out the nicotine is completely out of your system and VOILA- you're suddenly a non-smoker.

Sounds super, right? If you've ever been a heavy smoker, you're probably sitting back thinking that there MUST be a catch. For someone who has spent a few years POUNDING THE BUTTS (HAW!), giving up the FAGS (HAW HAW HAW!) can't be THAT easy.

Take it from me- it IS that easy. Not to put too fine a point on things, but the shit is f-ing AWESOME. It works, and works WELL.

I did have something of a false start, though. I started the course as suggested, but by the time I was at day 14 (where I was supposed to be off the ciggies completely), I still felt the cravings and still wanted to smoke occasionally. By that stage, though, I was down to maybe two or three cigarettes per day.

The thing was, though, that I wasn't actually RESTRICTING myself at all.

It's a weird feeling: It's almost as though you actually FORGET to have your regular cigarettes. There's no real EFFORT involved per se- you just find yourself suddenly remembering that you haven't had a smoke for a few hours.

At the end of week four, I had to go back to my doctor in order to get the prescription for the final two-months-worth of tablets. A week or so after that, I was actually forgetting to take the tablets, and STILL didn't have any cravings.

So I stopped. I put the rest of the tablets away (with the intention of passing them on to a fellow smoker) and went about my business, smoke free. Luckily, though, I hung onto them...

After being off the tablets for about a month, we toddled off on our holiday. On the second day away, I was chatting to a bloke when he lit up, and being a polite guy, he offered me one.

Like an idiot, I accepted.

When we actually made it to Perth, I managed to find myself a little baggie of nature's relaxant. Of course, when you're staying in fancy-pants hotels you can't exactly walk around smelling of the green stuff, so I bought a pack of cigarettes with the intention of smoking just one ciggie after each joint.

As something of a MASKING agent, you understand...

Within a week, I was smoking about half-a-pack per day. On the plus side, I spent a LOT of time giggling at nothing in particular and pondering the shape of my navel.

Heh. Good times...

I wasn't particularly concerned, though. First of all, I was FAR too stoned to be worried about such trivialities, but more to the point I knew that when I got home I would be able to start taking the tablets again, and all would be well. I smoked throughout the holiday, got back on the Champix as soon as we got through our front door, and was back off the ciggies again within a couple of weeks.

As of last week, I stopped taking the pills and am now completely smoke free.

Needless to say, if you're a smoker and you want to give them away, I DEFINITELY suggest taking Champix.

It isn't all rainbows and daisies, though. I did notice myself getting some f-ing RIPPER headaches after taking the tablets, but as long as you have some soluble paracetamol handy, you can take care of those bastards lickety-split. For the first couple of weeks I had a bit of trouble getting to sleep, but that didn't last long. Aside from that, the whole deal was pretty much painless.

Best of all, though, is the cost. Thanks to our pinko-commie Medicare system, if you are in Australia you have access to one course of Champix every twelve months at the normal PBS rate, which, off memory, was about $60 or so.

If you f--k up and go back to the smokes, though, you have to cough up the full whack for any subsequent courses of the pills. And knowing pharmaceutical companies, that probably works out to about six MILLION dollars and one testicle per tablet.

Y'see, Champix is made by Pfizer, and you KNOW that when it comes to charging for their drugs, they DON'T f--k about.

Come to think of it, it kinda makes you grateful that the gub'mint coughs up for the first course, doesn't it? May I be the first to take this opportunity to thank all you taxpayers out there for ponying up?

I say "you" taxpayers because *I* haven't earned anything of note- and thus have paid NO tax- for the last couple of years. So I can't really include MYSELF when I talk about taxpayers.

(If you listen REALLY closely, you can actually HEAR the indignant, mouth-breathing conservatives' heads exploding as they read this.)

Much obliged, yo. Heh.

HAW HAW HAW!

Ahem. Anyway, conservative baiting aside, if you smoke and you'd really rather NOT, then Champix may be the way to go. It is FAR cheaper (*snort*) than nicotine patches or gum or any of that other useless shite, and you actually get away from your nicotine addiction rather than simply altering the method by which nicotine enters your bloodstream and addles your mind.

(Which, incidentally, is the stupidest f-ing idea EVER. If you're addicted to nicotine, chewing lumps of f-ing gum that is FILLED with the stuff isn't exactly going to help matters. And yet people spend PILES of money on patches and gun and inhalers and whatnot.

Seriously, these idiots may as well just buy phials of pure nicotine and inject it straight into their own f-ing EYEBALLS. It'd achieve the EXACT same result.)

So I'm now an EX-smoker. I guess now I have to go around pontificating about how smoking is such a filthy habit, eh?

Sounds like a blast.

Later.