Wednesday, May 18, 2005

SMOKE FREE!

Back in February I quit smoking. I have tried to quit numerous times. As I have always said "Quitting smoking isn't hard. Heck, I do it a couple of times a week". The last couple of years I have made a couple of attempts to quit, but they didn't last. Last time I got the patch. I did great as long as I had the patch, but when the patches were gone, I went right back to smoking. This time I used the patch for a week, and after that just went cold turkey. There was only one time when I went around checking ashtrays to see if I had left a butt somewhere, but it passed.

Since I am diabetic, I really needed to quit. Smoking constricts the blood vessels in your extremities, and with the diabetes already lessening the blood flow, you stand an increased chance of losing a foot or leg. I rather like all my parts, and don't want to give any of them up. I had an uncle and a Great Aunt who lost a leg because they smoked and didn't control their diet.

As a consequence of quitting smoking, I also gave up beer. I have always said that it is a part of being in correct ballance. If you have a beer in one hand, you need to have a cigarette in the other to ballance. Besides,alcohol dilates yor blood vessels, so I figured that would cancel out the nicotine. Giving up the beer has proven to be more of a challenge, because the correlation is not as direct. But the doctor put me on a different diabetes medication, and it discourages drinking. I never was a heavy drinker, I just like a beer in the evenings when I get home.

Guess I'll give one of the non-alcoholic beers a try.