Remembering vices past

On a slightly lighter note than usual, it was three years ago today that I last smoked, I remember stubbing out the last one at 03:30 on September 25th 2006 and thinking to my self "I wonder if that really will be the last", and amazingly enough, it was (so far). Since that day, apart from emptying the ashtrays of visiting friends who still smoke, I have not touched a cigarette, a fact which surprises me even more than it surprises those who know me.

I am not saying it was easy, I was a committed smoker, it was part of what I was, and I enjoyed every cigarette I ever smoked. It was extremely hard. My advice to anyone seeking to do the same is make use of every goddamn aid on offer, use the maximum strength patches, and whatever it says on the pack, double it. Remember, the instructions were written by non-smokers, they have no idea. If it says use stage one for two weeks, use it for four, at least, and do the same with the following stages. Nicotine is more addictive than heroine, and an addict needs all the help they can get.

Do not depend on will power, only people you wouldn't want to have a drink with have will power, for the rest of us will power is like second sight, very few have it, and for those who do, it never works when you need it.

Also even long after you have given up, be prepared for the occasion twinge of sadness when it strikes you that you will never light up after a good meal or a cup of coffee again. For some, that sadness will never leave you. My darling mother once said that a smoker never becomes a non-smoker, they merely become smokers who are not smoking at the moment. Like me, she was a committed smoker who would invariably light a cigarette before making a telephone call, but, unlike me, she was born into an age where everyone smoked, and they all thought it was good for them.

She gave up following a serious accident which prevented her from doing her own shopping for a few months. Those who did her shopping while she was incapacitated, would of course have bought her cigarettes had she asked, but they were non-smokers who would have made her aware of their disapproval, and she found the prospect of their martyred smugness more difficult to face than even the withdrawal symptoms.

For myself, I gave up by choice, rather than by circumstances, and there were a number of factors which lead to my decision. The Nave of Albion had given up a year or so before me. He had also been a long time and equally enthusiastic smoker, who as I recall once fell foul of the trans-Atlantic language barrier, and caused some raised eye-brows when announcing to a group we met whilst on holiday in New York that he had to go outside, as he was "desperate to have a fag". Once he had given up, smoking was no longer something we did together, and. as such, seemed slightly less comfortable.

In addition, we have a child, and I guess it is best that he grows up without the wrong influences around him. Although, given how so many children rebel against their parents, our decision to quit may well result in him becoming a sixty a day tobacco baron.

The writing was already on the wall, of course, the ban on smoking in all public places was due to come into effect the following July, with the devastating effect it has had on British pubs, and, to a lesser degree restaurants. However, it was already becoming difficult and uncomfortable to smoke even in places where it was still legal. You could be sure that the instant filter tip hit lip gloss someone would have raised the subject of passive smoking, the sad demise of Roy Castle or the alleged tooth rotting properties of nicotine.

It was no use pointing out that the World Health Organisation study on the effects of passive smoking was suppressed for two years because it actually showed only that it was not wise to raise an infant in a pub, but for an adult over eighteen months suffering ill effects from the average levels of passive smoking was statistically less likely than being murdered in Norway. By then alternative studies funded by organisations with names like "Send Smokers to Hell" or "For the children, for the little children" had been published showing totally different, and more politically acceptable, results.

This was on top on the daily diet of newspaper reports which kept appearing at the time with headlines such as "Smoking makes your ears fall off" or "Scientists say smoking causes global warming" on sale next to the shelf selling packs of twenty with pictures of diseased lungs plastered across the front.

Of course the other side of the story is never mentioned anything like so prominently. it is not until you have given up that anyone mentions the slimming effect of a twenty a day habit, how much more difficult it is to keep the weight off your hips once you give up, and that obesity, often the direct result of giving up, is actually far more dangerous than smoking. I have actually only put on about eight pounds, but it has been a struggle.

Yes, I know smoking was bad for me, and that I gave up before the hacking cough and health problems kicked in. I gave up before I reached 40, so I remember all the pleasure cigarettes give the young but none of the downsides, which show themselves later on in life. However, for all the wonders of the world He created, it is surely evidence of a somewhat perverse sense of humour on the part of the maker that so much in life which gives you pleasure, is either bad for you, or makes you fat. There are surely few experiences more dismal than an entirely healthy lifestyle, and that seems rather unfair.

There is, of course, no going back, in a world where in the not too distant future, smokers will no doubt risk arrest in the street, and smoking in your own home will be a criminal offense if you so much as employ a cleaner or chimney sweep, returning to my old addiction is not a practical proposition.

However, if tomorrow you turn on the news and hear a report that a ninety mile wide asteroid is on collision path with planet Earth which will end in ball of flames next Thursday, that clattering you hear will be me rushing to the nearest tobacconist, before calling in at the liqueur store via my favourite chocolate shop.

A glamorous vice from the past

______________________
Health Warning: Smoking is the primary cause of preventable death and statistics