Redefining myself

I had a little chuckle when I wrote that title. Ten years ago I started this blog with a single paragraph posting about how I was redefining myself in the wake of a failed relationship, except I used 225 words to effectively say nothing. Following that paragraph was a five month hiatus until my next posting. Now I'm saying the same in the tail end of ending my relationship with tobacco. The difference is that at least I've built up a habit of regular blogging over the last 6½ weeks.

For that 6½ weeks I've been thinking of myself as a person who was quitting smoking. and quitting has occupied a lot of my attention over that time. As it exposed me to support and advice from an audience of other New Zealanders who are also quitting, this made quit-line a good place for my blogging. I'm now finding that I'm thinking about other things a lot and if I find I mainly want to discuss those things, then this or ¿Que? are the venues I'd prefer.

The other thing to consider is that giving up smoking is a process.

• Smoker - Self explanatory - becomes
• Quitter - Someone who is no-longer smoking, probably with great difficulties, possibly using chemical aids, support groups and services like quit-line - becomes
• Ex-smoker - able to resist smoking without using chemical aids, still recognising an addiction, may need a level of support - becomes
  Non-smoker - Able to resist smoking without using chemical aids or support groups. No-longer thinks much about smoking.

There's lots of other scales, for example quit-line goes straight from Quitting to Non-smoker, I want the Ex-smoker step in there, because I see it as a measurable step in my recovery from nicotine addiction and one I want to get to and then go through. I would like to define myself as an ex-smoker today, except that today I am using Champix, I am due to use Champix for the next 3 weeks. I don't at the moment know if I could successfully continue quitting without using Champix, and I've decided not to try and find out. This means by my definition I'll still be a Quitter for those 3 weeks. Of course there isn't a sudden transition from one stage to the next, obviously going from Smoker to Quitter is sudden, but the other steps are progressions, one day you realise you have moved from one to the other and even within each stage there are a lot of levels.

One of the things I'm finding on Quit-line is that when I read postings by those who have just quit (or are just about to quit) I know that only 45 days ago I was where they are now, but it seems a lifetime ago. They and I are at opposite ends of a wrong-way-telescope; I try to give useful advice to their questions and know from what I've seen that those who survive will be where I am now around Christmas / New Year, to me when I was there the people who had managed to stay given up for 40+ days seemed to be in an unimaginable position of success; now that I'm there I know that it's just one day at a time repeated a lot of times. It may only be  one day repeated lots of times but I know that it is moving me closer to my goal.

I'm hoping I can move on and find the energy to think of blogging about other things that fit here; or at least some more small essays for ¿Que?.