Going Cold Turkey

As I write this I have 5 cigarettes left… 5!!! Then I am going cold turkey. Enough is enough. This isn’t a New Year resolution either, it’s a financial choice.

I am not one of those people who make a promise at this time of year and then, a month later, are left with an expensive gym pass and a fridge full of good-for-you food that tastes of cardboard - neither of which will get used!

I am 33 in March and have smoked since being a teenager, bar the 6 months I stopped when my second son was born. That is a lot of cigs…

Packs of cigs have gone up and up with each passing year. Say an average pack costs £6 and I roughly buy 4 packs a week, which means I have spent somewhere in the region of £20,000…

£20,000 to effectively kill myself – rope would have been cheaper and quicker. So that’s £20,000 I could have spent on all sorts.

4 left now…

20k would have got me a decent, brand new car or even a top of the range second hand car!! Several in fact over the years. It would also be a substantial amount to have put a deposit down with many years ago, instead of getting a stupid 98% mortgage during the boom or bust years – am regretting that now I tell ya!

I could have travelled the world and visited all four corners, taking in the sights, meeting new people and having a different woman in each port!! Although with that comes its own unique pain!!

I could have bought a small zoo with only one dog in it and called it a Shiatsu!! (Old joke, sorry!)

Or invested in Google or Dyson in the early years; maybe created Facebook myself!

I could have visited the Antarctic and retraced the footsteps of famous explorers or thrown the biggest house parties ever at the Play Boy mansion!! If your name’s not down you’re not coming in!! 

Hell, 20k would have got me a training session for a few hours with Messi!!

I could have even designed, created, invented and built a female android that listens to what I say, pleasures me when I need, leaves stuff where I left it, have my tea ready for when I walk in, let me watch what I want to watch and never answer back or judge me…

Instead, I am staring at my last pack of cigs, with a tear in my eye, giving up this long relationship we’ve had…obviously not with this particular pack, but with my friends Marlboro, Lambert and Butler…

3 to go until D-Day…

We’ve had some good times like the time I was on a school trip, hanging out the window of a mountain side hotel in Milan having a crafty cig so the teachers wouldn’t see or smell, and the window giving way in my hands and totally coming off its hinges. Or the time I went to Blackpool to watch the footy as a teenager and it was baking hot, so I took my footy shirt off with the cig in my mouth and burnt a massive hole in it!!

Am not going to pretend this will be easy either. I mean I am known for been moody as it is and so without these little stress relievers can you imagine how much of a mardy arse I will be?!?! I have a feeling I will be very lonely as no one will want to knock about with me. I’ll also get huge too as I will comfort eat no doubt – but at least I’ll have money to spend on food!!

Every cloud eh…

I imagine it will be like that scene in Trainspotting where Ewan McGregor’s character goes cold turkey locked in his room and goes slightly mental as he just needs “one more fucking hit!”

Seems about right to have another… 2 left.

One thing I will not be doing is “smoking” one of those stupid electric cigs you see people using. They all look like they are chewing on the end of a BIC pen!!

Electronic cigs are the equivalent of Quorn – if you want the meat taste, eat fucking meat…

I have to say though that the outlook is not bright to be honest. I do not have the best track record of ending relationships and sticking to it. I imagine I will have lapses and, like other relationships, it will be frowned upon!!

My Dad did it though - not end it with my Mum - give up the cigs I mean. And he is now the worst ex smoker ever…

“Jesus that stinks!! You had a smoke? Filthy habit...”

And with that sentence I light my penultimate cigarette.

I have never had the inclination to quit before but January is a notoriously tight month in the wallet section and so something had to give. It was either that or alcohol, and I am not ready to end that relationship let me tell you now!

So, the plan is to quit smoking and be a slightly over weight happy person who looks younger than his current facial features suggest and who can run around with the kids in the back garden without breathing out my arse!

I may not be fitter, but at least I’ll be healthier…

And as I finish this piece I am now down to my last cig…shall I keep it as a reminder of a mistress I once dearly loved? A mistress that was always there when needed? The one relationship that has lasted well over a decade?

Fuck it, I’ll smoke it…

Wish me luck!!