Got a light?

It’s 9am and I’ve been up for four hours. I woke up at the butt-crack of dawn because I had a bad dream where my brother died – the fourth in a string of nightmares this week involving dead animals, cutting off my face with a razor, and being raped by wild bush-pigs.

No, I haven’t been smoking crack before bed every night. I’ve been wearing nicotine patches.

Nicorette is possibly the greatest legal substance I have come across in the course of my adult life. Nobody knows you’re wearing it and you get all the wonderful benefits of nicotine seeping directly into your skin without the pesky process of smoking, smelling like an ashtray, and the various safety risks associated with holding a flaming object in your mouth. I can wear my nicotine patch on the bus, in restaurants, at the office, around babies, and right next to the bar when I’m out drinking.

The problem is that rather than overcoming my addiction to nicotine, Nicorette has simply shifted the mode in which I absorb it. While wearing a patch, I am calm, relaxed, energetic and productive. The second the patch is removed, I feel antsy, yell at coworkers, pick fights with my boyfriend and cry. I also smoke cigarettes.

Over the past four months, I’ve noticed a developing pattern in my nicotine use. From Monday to Friday, I wear patches (approx $20 worth), and try not to think about cigarettes. It’s hard work, especially when a lot of my friends smoke, but I often make it through the whole week without smoking once. This is not only due to Nicorette, but also stems from a strong sense of self-control, my ability to overcome temptations, and my incredible resolve. I like all these qualities in myself so much that I want to reward myself for them at the end of the week. I do this by having a cigarette.

Oh yes, as soon as 5pm rolls around on a Friday, I pack up my desk, rip off my patch and smoke until I feel sick. This is sometimes achieved within 2-3 cigarettes, but if I’m planning on drinking over the weekend, I usually just buy a deck in anticipation that I will be a walking chimney until the following Monday.

Now I’m no accountant (hang on, yes I am) but if I used to smoke two packets of cigarettes a week (~$26) and now I wear 15mg patches 5 days a week and smoke one packet of cigarettes over the remaining two days ($20 + $13), I’m really no better off financially.

Why is this stuff so fucking expensive? I run out of money, try to go patchless, SMOKE and then wind up right back at the start of the Nicorette 16-week goddamn program. Sure, I fall off the bandwagon every now and then, but isn’t that to be expected? God didn’t create the world in a day – he created it in SIX days, and then he took a cigarette break.