Group Therapy

Last night was week 5 and we were thin on the ground. When I say week 5, the first two weeks were preparation for quitting and since then we have been gathering to measure our success, resolve and to receive pre-prepared distractions and support ideas.

The first weeks measuring revealed a small number whose medications and nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) hadn't been timed to co-incide with the same quit date as everyone else. A gentleman who I had taken to be a successful quitter when he had first been introduced to the group proved to be a celebrity backslider. His progress, or lack thereof, seemed to be the exponential opposite of that desired as an outcome. As we prepared to quit, he was beginning a tumultuous backslide culminating in ramping up his own consumption as ours reduced to zero. Apart from providing the odd and almost certainly unintentional comedy moment he seemed to be the tethered goat of nicotine consumption, utterly helpless before its approach, and yet one can only admire if not respect his tenacity, at least in terms of attendance.

Having quit, one faces the weekly routine measurement of one's CO levels which, in my case began at 25 on the week before we quit, immediately decline to 5 the day after quitting and has progressively lowered itself via 3 to 2, the measurement expected of a non-smoker and therefore the proof of one's commitment and measure of success. The tobacco addict's equivalent of weight-watcher's scales, the activity involves breathing down a cardboard tube which one retains - and in my case records the weeks data on in ballpoint pen - preceeded by a group confessional in which each of us is required to cough up any off-road moments when a cigarette, cigar or any form of tobacco has proven irresistible.

Feeling pretty smug myself from a complete avoidance of the demon weed I await my chance to boast a clean record whilst various others confess they have had one, two or several slip-ups, or in some cases failed to even get to their start-stopping day. Our celebrity backslider, when similarly quizzed as to how long it is since he last had a drag considers carefully with lips pursed and chin in hand, wheezing tunefully through his cupped palm before replying "an hour-and-a-half"!

Feeling home-and-dry I suppress a chortle. Now it is time for our first healthcare visitor who's purpose, we are informed, is to talk to us about how exactly to avoid stress and therefore the possibility of giving in to temptation at moments of extremis. The beatifically smiling guest assures us all that she too was once a leper such as us but now tobacco holds no power whatsoever over her. Casually but smartly dressed in loose flowing top, trousers and those tell-tale combat sandals with neatly manicured and painted toe-nails she tells us a cautionary tale of the pitfalls to be expected and avoided, avoidance being the most favoured option, before introducing us to the emergency cure should this be unavoidable - Bach's Rescue Remedy! As she adduces its great properties and constituent components, which if she is to be believed would relieve a Lion's toothache and reduce an Elephant's broken tusk to no more than an itch I suddenly realise we have been cornered. She's off, handing round samples of which, she confidently avers only one drop is ever required. A drop in a glass of water can seed another glass. A drop in ... well, an ocean!? I recall the tale that a prize of £1,000,000 lies unclaimed by anyone who believes, as this lady seemingly does, that they can prove the veracity of a homeopathic remedy! We've been offered up for seduction by the snake-oil saleswoman! Suddenly it feels like time to go home! And so I do!