"I don't need a nicotine patch, Penny. I smoke cigarettes."

Penny Escher: And I suppose you smoked all these cigarettes? 
Kay Eiffel: No, they came pre-smoked.

and:

Kay Eiffel: What's this? 
Penny Escher: [seeing Eiffel smoking a lot of cigarettes] It's literature on the nicotine patch. 
Kay Eiffel: I don't need a nicotine patch, Penny. I smoke cigarettes.

These lovely quotes are both from Stranger Than Fiction, a must-see film. However, Kay, the writer, continues to smoke.

I have once again realized that writing a blog is very difficult. As said before, it is especially challenging when you are planning something for someone else, most of it has to be a secret for now, so you cannot tell. Nevertheless, I want to make this blog worth reading. And I want to keep writing every day. It is of course not as difficult as quitting smoking.

I have looked into the matter and it seems there are a few options out there. These are, however ridiculously unhelpful in our case.

The most obvious are patches, but S. had tried them a few years ago. It worked for about a week. Not the patches, the quitting. I am not really sure how the patches worked. There is nicotine gum, but he never chews gum, doesn't like it. So I doubt he would start chewing away now.

So what else? Amongst other things, the NHS offers trained advisers who try to help you in a group or one-on-one, or so they say. But S. doesn't like to be among strangers. He so often gets irritated when he is among strangers and this is when he does smoke. How on earth would this work when he doesn't smoke and is irritated from the start? Well, I could go with him if NHS allowed it and sit though the sessions with him (and "guard" him?). The one-on-one sessions might work, but this is probably for people who are home-bound. Sometimes we meet a friendly and attentive doctor whom S. comes to trust, but this is rare. Also, I am not sure we would be able to select the right adviser, we would more likely be assigned someone, take or leave it.

Should I look into private healthcare? Are the extra hundreds of £s going to really help?

There are also things you can suck and chew on (not just gum), balls to squeeze, medicines to take, inhalators to inhale from. There is also hypnosis which we had talked about a few years back, he said I should go with him, but then we decided against it. There is a couple in the family, both smokers, who tried hypnosis and were adamant about their success and how easily they had quit. Then they were close to getting divorced. Not to mention that a few months later they both blissfully started smoking again. 

There might be options I missed in my list. Is there anything else? Apart from eating your cigarettes, of course?!

Perhaps it would be best if I listed all the options to S. on that very first day. I don't think this would be of much help, we have been through all this before, he doesn't want any of these options. He has declared that the only way to quit is to quit. And the only way for him to quit is if I helped him.

To sum it up, of course the only real way to stop smoking is to make a very difficult decision and stop smoking. Do not light up again. No more "20 blue camels, please".

This is a very unpleasant thought - I am going to help him in a process that is going to hurt him.

No use denying, nowadays I hate it every time he lights a cigarette. I hate inhaling the smoke.

And how long will I need to keep him occupied all the time? For a few weeks? A month? Several months?

How long does it take?