Saintless

As I recently posted, I got my prescription for Chantix finally! It seems like that was weeks ago. I’ve thought about it a lot since then, and debated on when my start date should be. Should I wait a couple of weeks, and make sure I’ve worked myself up to it? Should I start right away, and get it over with? Should I start on a weekend, in case it makes me whacky? So many questions, and the only real answer was inside of me – no right or wrong answer for this one.

I decided I’m going to start tomorrow morning. I figure that the first day isn’t very likely to affect my mood negatively, or make me ill. If that’s going to happen early on, I’m hoping for it to be over the weekend. Since the kids are with their dad this weekend, I don’t have to worry about how my moods will affect them. And this might just possibly have me not smoking by the SuperBowl party I’m hosting the following weekend. We’ll see.

The Chantix Month 1 Kit comes in a little rectangular box, with 4 cards in it. During the first week, I take 1 little white pill every morning for the first 3 days. Then, for the rest of the week, I take a pill twice a day. The remaining weeks look to be a stronger pill, which is blue, and taken twice daily.

The instructions for using the cards indicate that I should pull the purple slider and press and hold the green tab. This sounds complicated. I’ll be finding out tomorrow morning.

I’m a bit nervous. I’ve heard conflicting stories. Everyone I’ve talked to personally who has used Chantix tells me that it just blocks the receptors that give you a high from nicotine, and that after about the first week, you just have no desire to smoke. 3rd party accounts have told me that it makes you throw up if you smoke. I am hoping the 3rd party accounts are wrong.

Tonight I plan to call my closest friends and let them know. I’m very afraid of the worst of the side effects – suicidal thoughts. If I find myself there, I will immediately quit taking Chantix – it’s not worth the pain or the risk. But, I need the support of my friends to make sure that if I find myself there, I have people watching out for me.

I typically don’t get very down and personal on this blog, but I hope to blog daily, at least at first, with my experiences. I will write about my moods and any other side effects, because I think it’s important for people to know what to expect, and for me to keep track of it as I go along.

I hope that anyone who has used Chantix will comment as I go along, either to give support, or tell their experiences. If there’s anyone else out there actively using Chantix, I’d love to hear from you, as well.

My big hope for Chantix is that it will keep me not smoking for long enough that I don’t have a desire to go back. I have no doubts that it will work – or maybe I’m overly optimistic. But, I think it’ll get me to quit, and keep me quit for the 6 months I’m on it. But, what happens at 6 months and 1 day? Or 7 months? I really enjoy smoking, and I won’t lie about that. But, I plan to use the 6 months of freedom to find all the ways I enjoy being a non-smoker. The first thing I’m going to do is wear perfume, and use my lotions that make me smell good. And I hope to find lots and lots of other benefits, so that when temptation comes, I won’t want to give in.

Tags: Chantix

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 8:36 pm and is filed under Not Smoking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.