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No smoking from 1st of February 2006

It is the tradition at this time of year to make New Years Resolutions. A bold, and usually fruitless, effort to change one or more unwanted qualities from ones life, from loosing weight to exercising more and of course, give up smoking. Well frankly I don’t believe in New Years Resolutions for the simple fact that changing isn’t as easy as just deciding one day that you’re going to give up what has been until now a major part of your life. Even worse is that most people decide that giving up one habbit is ’so easy’ that they choose to try and give up several of their unwanted traits. Now I’m not saying that everyone setting out on a New Years Resolution campaign is destined to fail, but lets face it, they usaully do.

So, fully knowing that any attempt to completely give up smoking as a New Years Resolution (NYR) is destined to fail, Siân and I decided in September 2005 that we were going to quit completely. This decision was made in September for a number of reasons, most obviously to avoid it being a December NYR; but also as our lives get ever more entwined together, I started to realise that I wanted to spend as many of my years with Siân as possible and that continuing to casusally smoke would shave at least ten years off our potential. Thankfully, Siân agreed.

It also is no secret that my father died prematurely almost entirely due to being a life long smoker, sometimes smoking up to 40 cigarettes a day in his prime. I have never even got close to smoking seven a day, but this I feel is immaterial. Since deciding to give up, I have been doing some research into the damage caused by smoking and it is horrifying. There are countless cancers associated with smoking alongside a helping of various heart diseases. Combined these culminate in a smoking persons life expectancy to be ten years less than a non-smoking person.

However, amazingly if a person stops smoking completely and never goes back to tobacco within five years, that persons risk of heart disease killing them drops to the same level as a life-long non-smoker. After about 15 to 20 years of not smoking, a smokers lungs will be back to 100% normal capacity. By giving up now both Siân and I are ensuring that when we are approaching our 40th birthday’s, our bodies will have almost completely recovered from the effects of smoking, enabling us to enter our truely ‘adult’ years in good health with a good future ahead of us.

‘So why 1st February 2006 and not now?’ I hear you ask. Well between September 2005 and the 1st of February 2006 there are a lot of events and parties that will put both of us in a position where we’ll be in the environment of alcohol and smokers, both of which are the worst things to have around a person trying to give up. After Siân’s Birthday in January we will not have another big party to attend for many months, allowing both of us to get through the worst weeks of cold turkey without temptation.

So wish us luck (comment to this post!) and don’t come near us until some time in April 2006! (Just kidding)