mothers on the verge

So, there I was burbling on about how I planned to give up smoking with a little help from Champix and possibly some willpower. But it's over, I'm back on the ciggies, off the Champix and feeling alarmingly not guilty about my spectacular fall off the wagon. Nontheless, I managed to smoke much less than usual for at least three weeks so that's something to be thankful for, right ? OK, maybe I'm just trying to see the upside where there isn't any. Maybe I'm a terrible failure worthy of your derision. Maybe I really will go green and explode if I don't stop lighting up (as is the common belief amongst 6 years olds these days, or so claims Firstborn). Whatever. I am now committed to giving up on giving up. For today, anyway. But one quandary remains - how on earth am I going to 'fess up about my failure to the charming Dr T? After all, kind authority figure + my bad behaviour = deep-rooted shame (akin to being dragged in front of the headmistress, aged 10,...

MM, thanks for the vote of confidence. I am simply too tired to throw anything at you so you're quite safe. This is another Champix side effect resulting from my now chronic insomnia. It was quite fun at first, staying up into the early hours with everyone else snoring in bed - not to mention useful as I've been ploughing through work like a thing possessed. But the fun is over and I'm now going through an odd shattered-but-still-wide-awake phase which gives me the zest and vigour of a zombie. A very strange sensation. Other symptoms? Sporadic rage and flatulence. Not necessarily in that order.

Following on from the realisation that my lungs are filthy and if I don't give up the smokes soon I face a life of wheezing at best, off I trotted to see the charming Dr T. Dr T, who's charming by virtue of the fact that he's less jaded than the other doctors in the surgery (in other words, he treats patients as if they're human beings with a right to NHS services rather than annoying fraudsters trying to gain sympathy for imaginary illnesses) promptly put me on potentially habit-forming drugs to get me off the evil weed. Something doesn't feel quite right about this but since I'm so pathetically grateful to have a doctor who's willing to give me more than two seconds of his precious time, I have acquiesced to his demands. Anyway, this wonder drug is called Champix and promises to have me merrily chucking my smokes in the bin in no time. Or it will if I can get past the possible side effects, the highlights being abnormal dreams, nausea, flatulence, snoring,...

The day has finally come. The writing is on the wall. Yup, that's right; I'm trying to ditch my utterly revolting, terribly unfashionable and social pariah-inducing love of cigarettes. People who don't smoke don't really get it. "Just give up," they say. ( Just give up?? That's a bit like telling a small child never to eat sweets again. Or for Posh Spice to go easy on the pouting.) Then, even though they've never inhaled a smidgen of nicotine in their smug little lives, they feel it appropriate to lecture me at length on the many different and apparently miraculous ways by which their Uncle Ted gave up his 60-a-day B&H habit, like eating mung beans harvested by virgins during a full moon or some other utter tosh. So annoying it actually makes me want to smoke.