Well, I discovered some setbacks which made me reconsider whether I could take part in Octsober after all, but I decided in the end that it
was worth it provided that I changed my plans a little. They hinge around the fact that I have been scheduled for a relatively small back operation on Monday (October 5th). I am keen to go ahead with this as it will help in the medium-to-long term but for a couple of weeks the post-op pain will probably be worse than what I currently have. However "small" it may be spinal surgery isn't gonna be painless! The 2changes this brings about are:
1) My first rule, "No drugs that I have abused" may have to be amended to allow me to take opiate painkillers for the post-op pain. I am gonna try using NSAIDs alone in the first instance, and have got my doctor to prescribe me Omeprazole at a higher daily dose to protect my stomach so that I can take these again for the first time in almost a year. If I'm in lots of pain though I will resort to opiates to make myself comfortable. The sub-rules are:
a) Only
therapeutic, not recreational doses of opiates and only if really needed.
b) True opiates and NSAIDs for the pain,
no tramadol (which I am one of those rare people who really love this drug way too much and get hooked on it real easy and then have a nightmare whenever they have to come off. I quit it for good and I mean to keep it that way. I have invented a whole profile of "side-effects" which will give me a legitimate reason to refuse it without mentioning the side effect that it gets me higher than a kite.
2) I really wanted to include tobacco among "drugs of abuse", screw up my best willpower and kick off an attempt to quit smoking for good by keeping off it for the month. I had a few appointments booked throughout October with my counsellor, but the 1st one is on the 7th (wednesday) which is only the day after I am due to be discharged from the hospital so I seriously doubt that I'll have the mobility to go to it. Without my counsellor's help I'm realistic enough to realise that I won't be able to go the whole month without a smoke so I've cancelled the appointments to allow them to be given to someone else and asked her to call me in a month. I'll just have to wait until November to quit smoking

Never mind, if I'm successful with the remainder of Octsober it might give me the inspiration I need to quit smoking, too. Trouble is, I know that if I include tobacco (with which I'm 85% certain I'd fail to quit entirely) among those things I have to completely stop using then
when I cave in and smoke I'll get really disillusioned with the whole effort and probably give in to other temptations too (at least I'm honest about it). Better I think to allow myself a smoke from time to time and include everything else in the quittage attempt. Instead of totally quitting smoking then I have resolved to simply cut down as much as possible to make it easier to give up when I can go back to the counsellor.
I wish everyone luck, I'm glad i came to a decision in time to be a part of this
