From: Dave Death
Category: Life
Date: 08 February 2006
At fifteen pounds for a week's supply, Nicorette patches are vastly more expensive than the contrabrand cigarettes so many of us smoke. For those who purchase cigarettes by more prosaic means there may well be an immediate cost saving, yet it still feels that there is some profiteering here at the expense of an addicted market.
You'll find your craving for nicotine is lessened, but in its place comes a strong feeling of naseua. On applying the patch your skin will itch and redden. This fades, but the sickness builds in its place. And the effectiveness of the patches wears off so that by the second day you will gladly pull the patch from your skin, ripping hairs with it, and light up again as you might welcome a long-lost lover.
Using patches you'll find you have much more time, since you will no longer be spending time smoking and staring into space. The cigarette had formed a punctuation mark, whether a comma, semi-colon or full stop, by which you could partition the events of your day. Now, that is lost, and you are defenceless against the merciless march of time, of which you suddenly have so much more to fill.
Your throat will be soothed, and your clothes will not smell. However, you will miss the chance friendships that are so often struck up - to say nothing of the grand love affairs - with the lighting of a shared cigarette. Your attractiveness will diminish to such an extent that the only people capable of finding you attractive will be fellow non-smokers. Smokers won't notice you; they dream greater dreams.
This review is part of an occasional series. Next week - why heroin is good for you.
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