Day 9: A Day Without the Patch

I was wigging out at work yesterday without the patch. Just one day without the magical sticker made me realize exactly what purpose it served - giving me the ability to not rip off the eyebrows of my co-workers one hair at a time, then dump their eyebrow-less bodies in a vat of chemicals.

I made it through a day without smoking or the patch, and it wasn't so bad. But it made me realize that the decision to quit smoking wasn't that simple, like deciding to take vitamins in the morning. It's a total lifestyle change, and quitting opens up all this extra time. Here's how: I smoked anywhere from 10-15 cigarettes a day, and on weekends it was a pack a day. I averaged around 17 cigarettes per day. A cigarette lasts anywhere from 5-10 minutes.  So 18 cigarettes per day times 7 minutes per cigarette works out to 2 hours per day I would spend smoking. Monday through Friday, most of my nicotine intake would be during working hours, and would require me to walk away from my desk to inhale. On weekends I would often sit with my cigarette and watch the news, or a movie. That's a lot of time during the course of the week (14 hours) where I'm smoking, and not doing much else.

Now that I've quit, and my downtime is consumed with keeping busy so I won't want to smoke, I'm finding myself getting more accomplished each day. Where there used to be cigarettes scattered throughout my day, now there are little bits of free time - these translate into a shorter to-do list.

It's amazing to discover what you gain from quitting, which is much more than just healthier lungs.