David Cameron's Diary

My last cigarette was at 20:00 on 22nd January 2007 and I started using Nicquitin CQ patches (step 1).

Well, it is now 5 (maybe even 6) days since I last put a new nicotine patch on. Mind you, I only took that one off yesterday evening. I think it is safe to assume that the 24 hour patch has probably given up all the nicotine that it can do by now.

It was possibly a wacky hypothesis after 32 years of smoking up to 40 cigarettes a day and probably starving my brain of oxygen, but I thought that I could get gradually less and less nicotine entering my system, weaning myself off Nicotine quicker than the Nicquitin CQ plan suggests, getting the quitting without aids down to ~ 1week.

It may have been wacky, but I just couldn't get the sense of taking 6 weeks at 21Mg, then stepping down to 14Mg for two weeks and then nothing!! i.e. you take 6 weeks to drop 7Mg and then only the 2 weeks to finish "step 2" and drop the final 14Mg - I didn't like the idea of that drop. Looking 8 weeks out, that didn't seem like a drop, it looked like a precipice and this system did not have a step 3 (or 4 etc....)

So, I was somewhat bold and decided to squeeze every last drop of Nicotine from my step1 patch until it could give no more.

So far it is early days, but it has worked for me - Since last night I have given up the (admittedly exhausted) patches; however, I don't claim to be better than the scientists and I can assure you that if I had encountered the first feelings of weakness, I would have (and still would) apply a new patch - anything other than take a cigarette.

Of course, I possibly have some mental programming too, having used the Hypnotic Tracks Stop Smoking MP3. I will be honest and say that I find the MP3 so relaxing, that I have usually drifted off to sleep, so am not sure whether it has subliminally implanted something or not. I do know that I have found it somewhat easier to try and stop on this occasion.

Now should you decide that you want to buy and use the Hypnotic Tracks Stop Smoking MP3, then I want to declare an interest - I will receive commissions from this company for any services bought following a link here - in turn I will make donations to Cancer Research UK.

I also celebrate my first new member (Kasper) on the Smoking Support forum that I launched yesterday - I have had huge numbers of private messages of support having gone public in my company email system. I think that all smokers deserve the support in their decision to quit and to leverage the advice that others may have through a forum environment - so I am glad to take the initiative and just see where that forum takes us.

Labels: cigarettes, forum, hypnosis, nicotine, stop smoking, tobacco

Having gotten 8 days in and receiving many private messages of support, I thought that it may be quite nice to give all smokers out there the chance to join my stop-smoking bandwagon, sign up to a forum and start telling your own story under your very own "topic".

I want to see everyone get evey bit of encouragement from others to help the succeed. I know that a blog goes some way to fulfilling that, but a dedicated forum should help get the messages flowing.

I'd like to see tips in the forum to help break the habit...e.g.

what did you do after a meal when you would normally have lit up a cigarette?
did you rely upon crutches e.g. patches, hypnosis, acupuncture etc.. and with what results

If you bookmark http://www.davidcameronsdiary.co.uk/labels/stop%20smoking.html you can continue to get all my stop smoking blog entries here without reviewing all my other grumpy comments.

But.... if you would like the opportunity to discuss this further in my new Stop Smoking Forum in a bit more conversational way, please join up to the forum now.

Remember that you don't have to have been a smoker yourself to have been touched in some way by smoking related issues....perhaps you lost a father or brother or worst of all, saw a child lost to smoking related illness? For that reason, I have opened a "shock" forum where those that are comfortable telling their own horror stories may do so under the anonymity of a forum pen-name. If only one person is saved from an early grave by recognising something in your story that triggers them to stop smoking, then the Stop Smoking Forum will have been a great success.

Labels: cigarettes, forum, hypnosis, nicotine, stop smoking, tobacco

I am amazing myself - I have always weakened in the past, yet I do feel different this time - I feel like I have really committed to giving up this time and will not fail.

This is from someone who went for an face to face hypnosis session (rather than the mp3 method this time) first thing of a morning in the past, felt great and stayed off the cigarettes all that day. In the early evening, I got curious about what the hypno-therapist had done to me and whether he had made cigarettes taste like [you substitute whatever horrible nasty you can think of here].

So, on that occasion, and of course it was purely for research purposes, I took a cigarette and it tasted lovely and I was back on them again. I am determined not to make that mistake this time.

The messages of support from colleagues has been tremendous - one colleague has pledged an incredible ~£5,000 to Cancer Research UK via monthly payroll giving over the next 10 years if I can get to three months without a cigarette.

Pledges like these are terrific and really morale boosting - they may not have the instant effect on the fundraising thermometer at http://www.justgiving.com/iquit but that in no way diminishes the value of the offer and it does place the moral obligation on me to stay off the cigarettes for the duration of that pledge.

Labels: cigarettes, hypnosis, nicotine, stop smoking, tobacco

In ~8 hours time I will have completed a full week without a cigarette.

I was previously smoking somewhere between 30-40 cigarettes per day and the first thing I would reach for in the morning was a cigarette.

During this week, I have found quite a few unconscious attempts to reach to my side for my pack of cigarettes - simply out of programmed habit. From the unconscious reaching out for a cigarette packet, it then hits my consciousness what I am doing and I realise what an idiot I have been in the past.

Tesco has been doing a special offer on the Nicquitin range of products and I have spent ~£100 stockpiling them whilst the price was relatively good. The irony is that for the last few days, I haven't felt the need to renew my patch - it is just as well that my wife is also attempting to stop and the patches are a very real crutch to her otherwise I would have regretted trying to bag the bargain patches.

Labels: cigarettes, hypnosis, nicotine, stop smoking, tobacco

It is now over 5 days since I last let a cigarette pass my lips.

For those that have followed this blog or know me directly. you will know that I have smoked for the last 32 years and I have enjoyed it immensely; giving up smoking is a big ask...........

Rather than just rely upon willpower alone, I am using a couple of techniques:

1. Nicquitin patches
2. Relaxation Techniques through Hypnotic Tracks

Although the Nicquitin program suggests that you should use the 21Mg patches for 6 weeks before stepping down to a 14Mg patch, I am feeling pretty good this week and am contemplating amending these suggestions.

I am wearing a 21Mg patch over 36 hours later after sticking to my arm. I do not feel particularly anxious about my next dose of Nicotine and the only ting that I am conscious of occasionally is the fact that I *LOVE* a cigarette; I am not the bothered that it may be *many* hours before I get access to "normal" cigarettes......I just know that I am appreciating a relatively free chest absolved of any smoky cconsequentrial issues.

In truth, although I should have changed my "24 hour" patch at ~8.00am this morning and am still using it 16 hours later, I detest the idea of using tablets\drugs\medicines etc. and feel good that I am resisting taking on a "stronger cure". I hate taking tablets and am using the Nicqyuitin patch >36 hours.

I am amazed to still be avoiding cigarettes; I am still further amazed that my body is not twisting my arm to try a cigarette... actually I feel quite liberated; If you think that I am doing well, please consider donating at: http://justgiving/Iquit - with a company donation, this is extremely generous.

Labels: cigarettes, hypnosis, nicotine, stop smoking, tobacco

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I have been troubled for some time with my current Hosting Provider - 1and1.co.uk.

I have noticed occasional blips in the receipt of email over the last couple of months and support were not helpful, denying any problem at 1and1s end; however, this last week has been the worst ever with complaints on many forums and 1and1 apparently unable to resolve the problems over the course of several days and falsely claiming that problems were fixed.

I actually upgraded my package with 1and1 before realising how big the problems seemed to have been - I still don't know what the cause is, but I regret the upgrade and the additional cash that I will have put 1and1s way.

Because of the problems and the delay in putting them right, I determined to find another provider. I had a look around and in general people seem to be disillusioned with their hosting providers, but I found what I think may be a little gem in Red Fox Hosting for the following reasons:

Positive reasons for settling on Red Fox Hosting:

1. Red Fox use the superb Helm Control Panel to manage all aspects of your domains & mail settings.
2. A number of tools are available to be installed and with modest tweaking, to run 'out of the box', e.g. forums.
3. Other hosting providers advertise unlimited domain hosting in your package, but then you realise that you can only have one set of FrontPage Server Extensions crossing all your domains. With Red Fox Hosting each domain you set up is truly independent of each other with the ability to apply FPSE, ASP, ASP.NET1.0 or ASP.NET2.0 on a per domain basis.
4. All mail is subject to user configurable spam & phishing filtering without additional monthly charges
5. All Red Fox servers are hosted in the UK and therefore no google disadvantaging with a .co.uk domain physically hosted in e.g. Germany (1and1 is part of Schlund AG - a German Company) - you can be knocked out of the "only include UK pages" if the hosting server is not physically in the UK, something I only learned through this search for a new provider. That's a problem if you are targetting the UK and people only ask Google (or other search engines) to serve up only UK pages.
6. The configuration defaults to creating control panels and webmail under your very own domain e,g, http://cp.[yourdomain] and http://mail.[yourdomain] - it feels more personalised and memorable.
7. No constraints on database sizes - all space comes out of your allotted diskspace on the package.
8. Very real participation and responsiveness of the Director on their own forums
9. Realistic pricing and if I decide to commit, then there is an annual plan that gives 2 months free versus a monthly contract.
10. Some great reseller options for either revenue raising, or maybe you just want some more room to manouevre supporting larger personal sites.

The only negative (or is it?) that I see:

Because I have had the flexibility of using catch-all emails in the past, I felt able to use them freely e.g. amazon@mydomain, bt@mydomain all forwarded to myreal@ddress . That was great to assist filtering of email and to identify misuse of mailing lists by those third-parties. However, Red Fox Hosting don't provide that by default. You can raise a support ticket to request it, and if they consider your reasons good enough, they are prepared to allow it at their discretion (I don't know how accommodating they will be in that).

But maybe that isn't a negative after all - I bet that everyone with catch-all email addresses have big spam problems with fabricated email addresses on the domain hitting their inbox just like me - maybe I should be neutral on this one rather than negative and think whether I could gain from the change.

Early Verdict

I have taken out a monthly contract (for my own trial purposes) on a Shared Hosting package. This provides for 2GB of web/mailspace and 15GB traffic, cancellable at any time.

I have only been with them for a couple of days now and I am delighted with what I see and have moved over a few sites (e.g. http://www.lettersfromsanta.co.uk) without hiccups (registration of the sites is still held by 1and1, but I was able to easily repoint via DNS on 1and1's basic control panel).

Although I think that they are a serous contender for my business, I am not quite ready to commit for the long term until I have given them a bit more of a trial run. As at date of this posting, this very domain is hosted by Red Fox Hosting, but I am open to persuasion on the best provider to go for based upon others experiences or reasearch. I am sure that there must be other disgruntled 1and1 customers out there that have been looking around this week just like me.

Still to research

I am not sure about the domain registration aspect - I don't know where to place that when I ultimately do cancel my 1and1 contract - for they will let my domain registrations lapse when I cancel. I don't know whether there is an easy option to separate the hosting and registration to get an overall more competitive price?

If anyone has any experience of transferring their domains to a new registrar, I would be glad to hear advice on that. Sure, I could transfer the domains over to the final hosting provider, but could I get a better price elsewhere with a reliable renewal process? Please post your thoughts.

Provisional Red Fox Scoring 9.5/10

I knocked off 0.5 simply because I would have liked to have had the opportunity to have a catch-all email address at my discretion rather then Red Fox's, but otherwise their services and accessibility to them has exceeded my expectations and represents remarkable value. Definitely worth a look-see for all those soon to be ex-customers of 1and1.

Labels: 1and1, mail problems, Red Fox Hosting, UK Hosting Providers

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