Stoptober - Diary of a Quitter: Day 12

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.

It would have been comical if I wasn't on a deadline. Or if my toddler, every time I put an item in the trolley, didn't repeatedly demand: "More please!" Or if the shopping list my partner hastily scrawled had made any sense. I had to call her - twice - to decipher how many broccoli we needed. It was two, by the way. Comical? No. Kafkaesque? You bet.

The stress kept me going. It wasn't until I got home and dumped the groceries on the dining table that it hit me.

I wanted a cigarette. Badly. More than I'd wanted a cigarette since the first day I quit.

Like that first day, I couldn't get the patch on soon enough. It made me feel dumb. Of course I didn't have this thing beat. It's been less than two weeks. I'm still in the grips of addiction. And I can't let my guard down.

The next time I go shopping on the weekend, I'm putting on two patches. Maybe three. And I'm definitely going to write the list myself.

To take part in Stoptober, visit www.stoptober.nz

For help quitting, visit Quitline at www.quit.org.nz or phone 0800 778 778