Recently I’ve been re-reading Douglas Adams novels, particularly enjoying his travelogue Last Chance To See, but the odd references to smoking makes me wince. Adams died of a heart attack in 2001, and as the British Heart Foundation points out, “quitting is the biggest step you can take to reduce the risk of having a heart attack.”
Two years ago I stopped smoking. The government told me to – well they banned smoking in public places and I went out to the pub for that one last time with a pint in my hand and…
I got drunk – too drunk, didn’t eat any food so I could have more room for lager and cigarettes, hence a blur of visiting the toilet every 10 minutes to piss and, well nothing. I’d drank so much my memory is blank and all I get next is a feeling of shame.
My wife woke and shouted, “What the hell are you doing?” and I looked down, saw myself pissing on the carpet and mumbled, “ugh!” and took myself to the bathroom.
Maybe this is a sign I should give up drinking, but no, I took it as the cue to give up smoking, and this wasn’t the only reason, some of the anxieties that were floating around my head at the time include:
* Brown teeth. Like most handsome young men, I’m dreadfully vain, and I was nauseated by the sight of my increasingly stained tusks. I was scared to smile and would momentarily grimace where I’d flash my teeth, worry that people would be revolted and then drop the grin and look shifty.
* Children. Nothing looks worse than trailing behind a pushchair with a fag in your gob. So I didn’t do it. Hence would find myself not smoking until the evening, finally light a cigarette and then feel a bit sick.
* Fertility. We wanted a second child and it wasn’t happening, we were due an appointment at the hospital for an investigation and I couldn’t bare the idea of being told it’s my fault. Hence if I stopped first, I couldn’t be blamed. Win. I think.
* Smell. A friend recently stopped smoking to persuade his now wife to marry him. He found a difficult time of it and made many attempts including hypnotism. After not smoking for a few days he said to me, “Rob, I never knew when I smoked, but when you go for a cig, and you think no one notices, they do, you really stink.” I hated him for a least a week after that, but he’d certainly produced a clanging bell that struck with a cracked note every time I sparked up.
So that morning I quietly decided to stop smoking, and it was very easy as I was horrifically hung over and I never feel like smoking when I’m ill anyway.
I’ve always found it easy not to smoke for a day or two, as long as I was lurking around the house and not exposed to any stress. It’s the third day that’s always more tricky when the little voice pipes up in my head going, “oh go on, you’ve been good, have a cig.”
This time it was going to be different – instead of giving in to the urge – I googled it. I decided to read as much about smoking as possible so that I’d be going into this battle armed, or more honestly, it was an excuse to immerse myself in smoking without actually putting a cigarette to my mouth.
Unsurprisingly there’s no shortage of smoking stuff online, there’s database fetish sites where every instance of an actresses lighting up is studiously recorded, there’s 80s musician Joe Jackson essay “The Smoking Issue” where he argues that the health risks of cigs have been grossly exaggerated, a furiously edited wikipedia page that helpfully points out that Nazi doctors were the first to link smoking and cancer and of course a hooky PDF copy of How To Give Up Smoking the Easy Way by Allen Carr.
Allen Carr – I have to type that carefully as it’s irresistible to confuse him with the speccy comedian with the Carry On voice Alan Carr. A confusion the comic must have noticed himself and quipped, “me? I’m not giving up fags.”
Carr’s book is repetitive and attempts to brainwash but I found it contained a few helpful ideas which I’ll paraphrase:
* Smoking is addiction to nicotine. All the stuff about needing stuff to do with your hands is nonsense. Addiction to nicotine. That’s it.
* Chewing nicotine gum is unlikely to help, that’s like trying to cure a smackhead by giving him a heroin patch.
* Smoking is a con that works via anxiety. In smoking a cig you simply top yourself up with nicotine. Every second afterwards your nicotine levels are falling and the only way to cure this feeling? Have another cigarette.
* Hence your body learns to associate the reduction of anxiety with cigarettes, yet the only true anxiety it’s resolving is your body’s need for that next cigarette.
What a con. That was the word that really stopped me in my tracks. I hate the idea of being conned. I’m cleverer than that, I like to think anyway.
So how to stop? Carr talks about an addiction monster that must die and every time it’s asking for a cigarette he’s going, “please feed me” and the only way to kill him is to not feed him. Hence every craving should be seen as a good thing, as this is your addiction monster dying.
The next few days were pretty easy, as Will Self writes, “In fact, nicotine withdrawal is a rather pleasant experience — giggly, slightly trippy, rendering the recovering smoker emotionally volatile, likely to laugh, cry or shout.” My particular version of this involved a lunch at an Italian restaurant which reminded me of the extraordinary sensations produced by eating a packet of Frutella on mushrooms.
Over the next few weeks I notice I’ve got a couple of cues for smoking.
* Phone calls to parents.
* Getting off the tube and waiting for buses.
* The pub
The first two are the easiest to deal with – I tell myself that’s the addiction monster dying and I can move on quickly – the pub is a trickier beast.
It’s not so much I want to smoke but my friends want me to smoke. One person in particular is a keen part-time smoker who relied on me to enable him to have the odd cigarette. He pressures me and is irritated when I refuse.
Two years later and it’s much much easier. I hardly think about cigarettes and I feel generally healthier. Woo hoo. And I get to feel superior to the smokers stuck outside restaurants and pubs.
If only Douglas Adams could have knocked the fags on the head then maybe we’d have a few extra books to read, or at the very least, the best ever person to follow on twitter.
Hello, all! I haven’t smoked a cigarette in 3 days now (well, the day’s not over yet) but I really want to quit for good this time (again), and so I, like you, thought that maybe if I research it as much as possible, I would have no other option than to not do it. I’m only 22, but I figure it’s better to quit sooner than later. Not only that, but I’m taking Anatomy & Physiology classes right now, and learning what smoking does physiologically to your body is repulsive. I’d be ashamed if I were to suffer the consequences of my own doing. Better to have someone else to blame. To get to my point, I think your blog is hilarious and very uplifting, keep up the good work… I think it also has to do alot with your speech. No punt intended; I’m from the states and it tickles me to hear you say “fag”. It almost makes me value the cigarette that much more… ALMOST! Much appreciated!!!!
I smoked for most of my life and giving them up was very hard. I bought all of the stop smoking gadgets but none helped. Then I discovered the e cigarette. The ecig uses a nicotine liquid that contains only nicotine. No cancerous substances at all. They have completely saved my life.