THE BUTT-KICKER’S HANDBOOK
1. Just before you decide to quit smoking, go get a Lung Function Test (PFT) done. You’ll need to do PFT’s every 3 months thereafter; and the dramatic improvement in the readings is just about the only thing that will ensure that you never touch the sticks again !
2. From the time you quit, your lung degeneration rate will slow down to the same level as a non-smoker’s. Amazing, huh ? But that’s not enough: you have to do what’s known as Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PRH) – which means a long repair job. I’ll write about this separately, it can fill up a booklet all by itself.
3. Quitting smoking is only the first of a long series of disciplinary measures you’ll have to initiate to make sure you revert (as close as possible) to the non-toxic being you used to be. After a while, you’ll realize that quitting smoking was actually the easy part – everything else is a whole lot tougher !
4. For a while, you won’t know what to do with your hands. Find your own solution, but avoid replacement therapy like the plague ! It’s easy to pick up an amber glass instead of a white stick; easier, even, to pick up a convenient item of junk food. Strictly a no-no. You’ll be replacing one addiction with another, and the fallout won’t be nice – after all, if you smoke, you die faster, but you might still look good in your last hours J; but if you booze excessively or engorge on junk food, you’ll look like crap for years before your body finally gives up !
5. Visit the dentist. You can finally remove stuff that won’t come back any more – all those nicotine deposits; if you want to add to the feel-good factor, talk to your dentist about stain removal. You deserve it – after all, your lips are never going to return to their original colour; your smoking fingers are still going to be piebald-yellow when compared with the other hand; so you might as well fix what you can !
6. Put all your ashtrays in a showcase. Once in a while, look at them the way you would eye a dinosaur exhibit at the Natural History Museum.
7. While at an airport, visit the smoking room – you’ll be gratified by how disgusted you are.
8. Don’t kill yourself trying to avoid smokers or smoke-filled areas: the more you are reminded of how you used to be, the more your resolve will harden. Don’t forget that smoking is a chronic relapsing habit……like Mark Twain said, “It’s easy to quit smoking, I’ve done it scores of times !”
GET A LIFE !
You know you’re an ex-smoker when they start talking to you about lifestyle changes. Good Lord. Believe me, quitting smoking was REALLY the easy part.
There’s a horrible laundry list, customised to the individual. Just so that you get a flavour of what’s in store for you, here’s mine !! :
1. You need to walk. Every day. Try 10 steps on day one, work yourself up to 2 kilometres by day 15. It’s not difficult.
2. Tea and coffee at work ? Cut out the sugar, laddie !
3. Halve the quantity of food you eat. Hmmm. OK, halve it again !
4. Breakfast is compulsory. You skip it, you’re dead.
5. Sleep whenever you like. Just make sure you ate at least two hours ago.
6. Extra sex does NOT assist weight loss.
7. Do you think you can NOT drink ? I mean, like, other than water ? And no, Diet Coke will not work.
8. Keep yourself clean-shaven, so that you can whittle down your moonface to a mitochondrion
9. Blubber is sexy ONLY on whales.
10. Here’s a serving spoon. No matter what’s for breakfast, lunch or dinner, you’re allowed to populate the surface area of this spoon just ONCE, as deep as you like.
Hare-brained, you think ? Believe me, it works ! GO TRY IT !!
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