Quitting Aid Test: Distractions

Drinking leads to smoking. As I’m giving up smoking, I need to find something to distract me from the times when the occasional half a shandy leads me to prolonged bouts of jollity and thus dreamy thoughts of nicotine. As I still haven’t got around to learning how to knit, ordering Alan Carr’s magical book, or tying my hands in intricate knots, they’ve been decidedly make-shift, but make-shift is cool now so that's alright.

- Gossip. Hearing that your beloved but commitment-phobic friends are either thinking of moving in with their loved ones, or going out with someone mentally stable and their age, or that someone is planning to jump off cliffs in reverse is pretty much guaranteed to keep your brain occupied just long enough for the craving to pass.

- Scrabble. Specifically, Jewish-enabled beginner Scrabble that allows most words as they look vaguely right. This is both relaxing and enjoyable and again, stops you from smoking even when you’ve gone so far as to pull the table away from the window in order to find somewhere to lean from. (Facebook Scrabble is less of a calming influence when playing people who manage to find words like MAYO, ETA or WITTOLS that are apparently factually accurate. Ffs. Mayo is an abbreviation and eta just pissed me off.)

- Laziness. Reading Harry Potter while your housemate does the cleaning is both calming and necessary. Plus, even if he can’t load the dishwasher, he does at least know what the squiggly signs on the oven mean.

- Cooking. My housemate, despite being a son of the greatest culinary nation on the planet, can only cook one thing. Two, if you count noodles from a packet. Seeing the joy on his face as he put the finishing touches to sausages and mash brought a tear to my eye, although that was probably just because I did all the boring preliminary bits like scrubbing the potatoes and he got to add the cheese.

- Eating. This week’s food fetish is good old Sun Maid raisins, although I doubt you’re supposed to eat quite this many.

Pints drunk: 2
Glasses of wine: 3
Cocktails: 4
Cigarettes: 0
Calories: I'm not Bridget Jones and I don't fucking care.

Quitting score: 10/10