Matthew Backhouse smokes his last cigarette before starting Stoptober. Photo / Nick Reed
Journalist Matthew Backhouse chronicles his efforts to quit smoking for Stoptober in a daily diary.
Maybe it was complacency, or naive bravado, or simple, glorious stupidity. No matter; the effect was the same - I'd reached the point where I smugly thought I had my addiction under control.
Then the cravings struck again. Hard.
It happened in the morning. After the previous day's
unintentional spell without a nicotine patch, I was in no great rush to put a patch on when I woke up - I had this thing beat. So I went off to do half a week's worth of shopping.
Bad call. If you've ever been supermarket shopping on a Sunday morning, you'll know it's a special kind of hell. Trolley jams in every aisle; impatient bargain hunters jostling for position at the produce specials; shoppers driven to a frenzy by the rapidly depleting stocks on the shelves, all elbowing for the last packet of organic quinoa and amaranth mix.
