Pumped up on nicotine

I've a rather excellent week and some off work. It seems cruel to return now, with all of life's daily irritations. To enjoy and be nicer to the world is my only real 2007 resolution, outside of generally improving my quality of life. I suppose I have to get over the angst about how bleak it is first.

I don't suppose the presence of stimulant fuelled tension and anxiety is overly helpful. My nicotine patches are just igniting whatever low level seething I'm already a part of and causes me such difficulty. I didn't realize my intent to have good will toward your fellow man is easy when you're A. smoking and B. safely contained inside a warm apartment with Magnum PI on in the background.

That same good will is far more difficult to muster with the North wind blowing your messenger bag all over the train station, your hair into your eyes and paper into your chest. It's even more difficult when you realize the whiny Scouse woman that always stands next to you and moans to her significant other about whatever tiny thing has raised her ire is also a smoker. Not only am I inadvertently regaled about her life and its petty difficulties every morning, I also have to face the sickly smell of our shared addiction.

Giving up cigarettes and adopting a better outlook would be so much easier if everyone else did too.

I wasn't overly prepared the last time I quit. I didn't expect the withdrawals to be quite as nasty as they were toward the end. With the last patch brought a rash of shivers, twitches and overwhelming desire to light up. Within a few weeks of finishing my last pack of NHS subsidized patches, I was back to smoking. When I tried to stop cold turkey, I wasn't prepared for the harshness of cracking the addiction and the habit at the same time.

So why will anything be different? I'm hoping my awareness, or the mental preparation I'm doing will make the light headed desire for a smoke better. If I can get out of the habit of smoking one cigarette in the car on the way, one at Atherton, one at Salford Crescent, one at Deansgate and one when I step off the Metrolink... then perhaps ceasing the drug completely will be easier.

It's only been 11 hours since my last drag.

Right now I'm sitting back at my desk, twitching silently whilst an itchy, sticky thing on my chest pumps me full of drugs. My stomach aches, my head is a little light, my jaw keeps clenching and the next period of forever without one of my comforting little sticks looms in front of me with a certain bleakness, matching the rest of the world after New Year's Day.

Here's to hoping.