This confession is written by a long term nicotine addict who is determined to finally give up smoking. There is a cigarette butt in a very small ashtray; one of those lovely green glass ones. That is the very last cigarette I will have smoked, ever, definitely. Otherwise I’ll die of suffocation, lack of breathing or god only knows what other horrible death. To help me fight withdrawal symptoms I have decided to write a confession, ready to share all the sins some of you converted ex-smokers might be familiar with.

Don't Even Start

I smoked my first cigarette at age fourteen when my brother Tom, now a sociology professor, tempted me in taking a puff. The year was 1968. Every one was smoking then. I used to admire how my mum and her friends pulled in the smoke through the mouth and then, as if by magic, it would come out in two neat swirls out of their nostrils. How did they do it? My brother could blow rings. He was sixteen. ‘It’s really nice,’ he said, ‘makes you all dizzy’. So that is how it began. I pulled on the fag and coughed until he explained how I should inhale. Then I got dizzy and had to lie down on the bed.

In those days it was a matter of personal preference. There was not yet the health knowledge and public stigma attached to smoking. People did not know smoking could cause lung cancer. Like today people don’t seem to know that a daily intake of more than one glass of alcohol can cause brain and liver damage. Neither do they seem to want to know how meat and dairy gets onto their plates. I am pretty sure that in say two decades from now eating animal produce will be regarded as socially incorrect as smoking is looked upon today.

I have tried giving up smoking several times in my life. When I was nineteen I had a boyfriend, Ben who didn’t smoke and didn’t like me smoking. I said I’d given up while in the mean time, hidden in the long metal cover of a short eyebrow pencil in my make-up bag I always had a cigarette or a but hidden ready to take a few puffs on the sneak when going to the toilet. Soon enough Ben found out. He could obviously smell my breath; so then my smoking was official again, I was no longer an undercover smoker.

I now live alone and don’t have to play games or hide and seek with anyone. I am my own boss and free to do as I please. The only person I can now kid is myself. So when I wake up in the middle of the night with a cough attack because I cannot breathe I tell myself, ‘give up smoking!’ and at that moment I am determined to give up the next day. Come the next day I change my mind and carry on smoking. It has often happened that I have thrown away my tobacco and papers (carefully wrapped up in a plastic bag) only to retrieve them again out of the rubbish a few hours later, incapable of keeping my promise to myself. Schyzo.

More recently I gave up smoking again, feeling very self-righteous for about three weeks (picking up the odd half smoked cigarette from others). With some help from pills to stop smoking I kept it up with great difficulty until I was beginning to grow mouth ulcers. I had read about such side effects but they had never been explained to me. Could it be possible, I asked myself that the nicotine actually serves as a kind of germ killer and keeps my mouth free from infections? It is true that since I stopped eating meat about a decade ago I have never had to go to the dentist once. Hhm... and then my dog died a nasty death, nearly causing me to have a nervous breakdown. Blame the dog, now I smoke again and I'm not so sure anymore that giving up is a good idea. Maybe people are exaggerating. The reason I was coughing so much, I discovered, was because the tobacco was too dry. I have now got into a routine of clearing my lungs last thing at night and I sleep through, no problem.

When I fail to give up smoking I even begin to think positive thoughts about the evil custom. I delude myself into thinking that perhaps smokers are healthier than non-smokers. Look at all the obese people trapped inside buildings all their lives. Since the ban on indoor smoking, we (smokers) at least get a regular supply of fresh air while smoking our cigarettes outside in the street or on café terraces, even in sub zero temperatures. Smokers have now become the outdoor people. Good smokers have learned to thoroughly cough up the dirt, thereby cleaning and strengthening their lungs. Spending over-average time outdoors improves the mood too. So smokers are generally more jovial than their counterparts. And smokers are more patient and compassionate because they have been treated like dirty lepers for so long. There now has evolved a certain camaraderie among smokers - sharing a sin.

But it's no good beating around the smoky bush. It is bad to smoke and knowing what we know today, what with passive smoking and all that, I would never smoke indoors in the proximity of children or where my filthy habit could affect other people. But still, of all the addictions prevailing, including food, alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, the Internet, for me, smoking 50 grams of best light tobacco over a period of ten days, occasionally spiced with some home grown keeps me going fine. I guess the key is like for everything else, moderation.

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