Thursday, May 26, 2005

Up in smoke

I have been a smoker since the tender age of 18. I started when I was at art-college, because it was a way to hang out with Craig Piercy in his car in the campus car park. Craig was and probably still is one of the most beautiful men I have ever been acquainted with – all baby blue eyes, eyelashes like elegant spiders and long blonde hair. He majored in pottery, so he was always dirty looking. There’s definitely something about a guy in jeans and a white, clay-streaked T-shirt, especially when that guy is hotter than, dare I say it, Hayden or Clive, both sweating and standing directly over the Equator.

Sadly, my relationship with Craig did not progress further than deep, post-pubescent tête-à-tête’s. My relationship with Marlboro Lights, however, proved to have substantially more longevity.

As most of you know, five weeks ago I had surgery on my throat. To cut (har-har!) a long story short, the surgery was not as successful as I was hoping for and in actual fact seemed to be detrimental to both the quality of my breathing and my voice.

Three weeks ago he accompanied me to Brighton to another consultation with my throat surgeon. During the consultation my surgeon asked me if I had given up smoking, to which I regretfully responded by telling him that I had not. In no uncertain terms he told me that if I was going to have any chance of getting better I had to stop smoking. No question about it. I just had to stop.

So immediately following the appointment Drew frog-marched me to W.H Smith and made me buy Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking, which three of my friends, Drew included, have read to successfully quit smoking. I actually bought it myself a couple of years ago, but in retrospect I don’t think that I was actually ready or prepared to stop smoking, so it didn’t work. I’m also not a big proponent of self-help books, or of therapy in general, having stumbled around under it’s “jurisdiction” for many, many years.

Not only because of my own health, but seeing how smoking induced lung cancer had recently consumed my Granddad, this time I was ready. In essence, the way the book works is by deprogramming you, while making you smoke at the same time. It forces you to challenge and re-evaluate all the subtle lies you, as a smoker, have told yourself over the years. One of the most fundamental of these is the concept of “giving up” smoking and understanding that this phrase is a total misnomer, because in actual fact you are giving up nothing and gaining everything – health and money to name but two of the obvious benefits. The book was so effective that by the time I was half way through I knew that I was already a non-smoker. Every cigarette was a nightmare and painful to smoke. By the time I reached the last chapter and was told to smoke my last cigarette I was relieved to say the least.

That last cigarette was two weeks ago today. Two weeks might not seem like a long time to you, but consider this – that is the longest I have voluntarily not smoked for eight years when I last attempted to give up, using the old fashioned willpower. That last time I was literally gagging to smoke for most of about four weeks.

This time has been completely different. I am quite simply a non-smoker now. One of the things the book tells you to do is to not avoid the situations where you would normally want to smoke, because the successful ability to get through these situations, during this withdrawal period, will provide the impetus for continued success.

Since I became a non-smoker two weeks ago I have been clubbing four times, been on two major benders and have been out for four dinners. I have had only one “moment” – two days after quitting while waiting in the queue for Ghetto with this man. Fortunately he refused to give me one of his, which I am glad about, because I would have been so mad at myself and probably would have killed him.

I cannot exaggerate what an achievement this is for me! Anyone who has known me for any amount of time will tell you that there was every possibility that I would be a smoker until my smoking-catalyzed dying day. The other thing is that I find myself noticing smokers so much more than I did when I was a smoker and I’m regarding them with pity. There is something about someone walking down the street, puffing away on a cigarette that is so NOT attractive - they are in fact a drug-addict. I can see now what all my friends saw when they looked at me and I have to say that I’m a little embarrassed.

So – me … a twenty a day smoker, now smokes zero a day, with no pangs at all and I keep finding myself smiling or giggling at the thought of how ridiculous I used to be.

Now, I wonder if Allen Carr has written an Easy Way to Control Your Crack Habit?

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