A successful New Year

I did it.  I finally resolved my new years resolution from last year.  I didn’t think it was at all possible, but when I put my mind to something, I usually succeed.

I remember making my resolution at midnight.  My husband John and I had just opened up a bottle of chilled champagne.

“So have you decided what your new year's resolution is going to be, asked John?”

“Oh please, I never make new year's resolutions.  It’s a waste of time.  They last for a week and then they are quickly forgotten.  Besides which, its hard to teach an old new trucks and I am the proverbial old dog.”

“Lets try it though, just for fun.  We might actually be successful if we do it together.”

I looked at him straight in the eye and realized that he was absolutely serious.  So what is it that you would like to do?

“I would love to get a new job, or maybe even change my career.  I am so bored at work.  I get up every morning and dread going to the office to just crunch numbers and make myself useful. I can’t see myself working at this job all my life.”  What I have always wanted to do since my childhood was to become a teacher.  My teachers made a huge impact on my life, but my whole family wanted me to carry on the tradition of being an accountant.  So I got my CPA, passed the cpa exam with flying colors and got a recommendation for the biggest accounting firm in New York City.”

I sat there a few minutes and tried to think about something that I really wanted to resolve and was when my thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a rolling cough.  I wish I could get rid of this darned cough. 

Ths light bulb went off and I knew I had to quit smoking.  That was the perfect resolution for me to work on.

“Okay, my New Year's resolution is to quit smoking by next New Years Eve.”

The next day I was on google, searching for quit clinics.  And I certainly had a lot of information that took me a few days to digest.  My  first option was to try the nicotine gum.  I was always a gum chewer, so I thought this would be an ideal way to quit.

In order to get the nicotine gum was required to sign up with a the company’s quit program which was 12 weeks long.  Twelve weeks???? .  I wanted immediate satisfaction but I had already been smoking since I was fourteen years old.  I was already 30 and so gave myself a break.

The gum came in a number of different flavors including Mint, White Ice Mint, Fruit Chill, Cinnamon Surge and Spearmint Burst.  I chose to go with the Cinnamon Surge since I put cinnamon on my toast every morning anyway..

By week 8 I was really not getting far with the nicotine gum, and I started to become bored with chewing nine pieces of gum and more a day.  When I tried to call for support, I either got a message indicating that they were receiving too many calls because of COVID-19 and to visit their website.

I did not like the side effects of the gum either,  I kept on getting a tingling feeling in my mouth, feeling like my cheeks were vibrating.  I was still smoking, although maybe a little less than I had before.  I actually felt like my mouth was on vibrate and I began to hate chewing gum.

My best friend Charlene called me one morning to tell me about an exciting program that the American Cancer Society was offering for free and they were looackking for serious volunteers to commit three months to their new program.  So I thought to myself that this sounded like the type of program I was looking for.

I called them the next morning and after a brief phone interview, I was invited to participate in the program.

The quit clinic was held in a conference room on the second floor of the American Cancer Society and we were directed to bring a full pack of cigarettes with us.  I thought this was kind of crazy.  Why would we possibly buy an unopened pack of cigarettes if we weren’t supposed to smoke at all.  But we learned there was a method to their madness.  

We were each handed a paper with a form to fill out, including questions such as “how much do you feel that you need the cigarette you are going to light up; how did you feel after you smoked the cigarette, and finally did the cigarette actually fulfill your craving.  After filling out the form we were instructed to take the form and wrap it around  the package of cigarettes.  I laughed inside, thinking what a pain in the neck would be if we had to perform this activity after each cigarette was smoked.

We met once a week for the next twelve weeks and then came the next challenge.   It was called “One Day without a Cigarette” and we were required to stop smoking completely for just one day.

I woke up that morning, determined as ever to not smoke for the whole day.  I would normally smoke a cigarette when I woke up, even before I got out of bed.  I would then have another cigarette while making the morning coffee and of course a cigarette or two after breakfast.  My next desire for a cigarette came after completing my daily chores and than another one or two in celebration of finishing all my work.  I could go on and tell you how many cigarettes that I would normally go through a day.

I made it though.  I did not smoke one cigarette that day and challenged myself to not smoking the next day.  Before I new it, I had not smoked a single cigarettes after ninety days.

It is now midnight of the new year and John and I sat in our living rIoom by the fireplace as we did every new years day.  I raised the glass of champagne again and toasted to a new year, a year of finally resolving a promise I made to quit smoking.

If your wondering what happened to John’s resolution, he quit his job at the accounting firm, went back to school and got a master’s degree in Education,