I AM GONNA BE A DADDY!

My wife is 10 weeks pregnant and due mid-September, so excited. Have started a ’side project’ to chronicle it all: http://beingadaddy.net

Wow, I’m the happiest bloke around…

We’ve had a bit of a cooler week in Melbourne, with the nights in particular having a little chill about them. I’ve enjoyed it, it’s been nice coming home from work, getting into my pyjamas and snuggling up on the couch, watching TV and cuddling the wifey.

It’s a little strange though, as last winter seemed to go forever and summer was a very welcome change. Now that we’ve done that though, I am warming (hehe) to the idea of a cooler period and snuggling up and being toasty warm. What I don’t like, and am dreading however, are the bitterly fierce and bastard winds that slice through you. Cold is ok, but being flayed by icy rain and wind isn’t appealing.

In a few months time it’ll be all about bed socks, soup and toast, and hot chocolate. Plus reading in bubble baths and having nice, warm dinners. Also in a few months time I may very well be complaining about the cold and calling for summer to hurry up.

Seems to be the way these things go.

With the exception of a four/five-month break, I have been a smoker for around 10 years. That all ended nearly two weeks ago. I am now a non-smoker.

The origins of this habit began earlier. I had my first full cigarette the day of my 11th birthday and bought my first packet, myself, aged 12. I smoked now and then, on and off, until I was 15 and decided I didn’t want to be a smoker ‘when I grew up’. When I was 16, I started again and as mentioned earlier have been ever since, excepting a short intermission where I toyed with quitting, but if the truth be told, never viewed it as more than temporary anyway.

The past six months or so I was getting closer and closer to calling it quits on the nicotine front. I wasn’t enjoying it quite as much as I did and plans for the future were evolving – plans which required me to be a non-smoker. So I decided on a day and went and spoke to a chemist. After some chatting and divulging of my smoking habits and rituals, using patches was decided as the best way for me to go. I’m doing the 3 month program, where you use 21mg patches for 6 weeks, then 14mg ones for 3 weeks before dropping down to 7mg patches for 3 weeks. The chemist told me that some people are on them much longer than that and if I felt that I needed longer to keep using them. It’s obviously early days (Week 2 almost at an end) but I am comfortable using patches for as long as I need.

The day before Q-Day, I smoked a lot. Every 30 minutes I’d duck outside for a couple and really suck them back. I savoured every breath and tried to imagine how the next day would play out. I think that smoking that much actually helped me quit, as I felt a little ill by the time I puffed my last and climbed into bed. Waking the next day was tough, as I usually showered, dressed and smoked before heading off to work. There were many times throughout that day and the ones that followed where I was at a loss for periods of five minutes – these gaps were previously smoking time but they were now empty.

I came to realise that for me, smoking was a form of punctuation – a way of marking the passage of time: I ate then smoked, I worked a little the smoked, I arrived/left work and smoked, I got home and smoked, and so on. Without the smoking I was a little lost and found myself panicking about how I didn’t know what to do with myself at those previously-critical junctures. So I started having a glass of water, followed by some fruit, each time that I would normally have a cigarette. That helped and I have been eating a lot of fruit and drinking a lot more water than I used to. The first Saturday was tough and I ate a whole rockmelon on one sitting, wondering whether I’d really be able to shake the habit.

Each day has been a little easier, and knowing that my body isn’t psychotically screaming out for a smoke due to the patches, I have found myself getting better and not thinking about them. The other day though I forgot to put a patch on at home and went the day without one.

I was ok whilst at work but when I got home that night I was really struggling. I didn’t want to use a patch only for a few hours so I rode it out, but the wife found me particularly hard to be around and went to her folks for a few hours. Next morning I remembered and it was a lot easier.

So I’m two weeks in and quite proud of myself. It is easier this time also because I am definite in my desire not to be a smoker any more. I don’t want a sore throat any more and I don’t want the wife to roll away from me when I get into bed, put off by my odour. I keep telling myself that “I am a non-smoker” and it’s sinking in. Each day is better than the last (ever so slightly) and I am confident that by following the patch program I can really shake this addiction once and for all.

The kids I will one day have will be glad I live to see them become adults. And I will have beaten an addiction. Both pretty damn good motivators.