Somebody stop me, I’m smokin’

Yes, I know, It’s a filthy habit. And the older I get the more filthy it seems. It’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve noticed how horrible my hair, my clothes and my hands smell. Honestly, I’d never really noticed before. I suppose it’s because I smoked everywhere from an early age. Nothing was sacred, I smoked in the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen and the car as well as the more normal places. Such as the mouth. So I was constantly surrounded by a miasma of evil to the point where I literally couldn’t smell it anymore. When I gave up smoking a few years ago I loved the way I could go to a cinema and NOT be craving a cigarette all the way through. The freedom it gave me to do other things instead of sneaking out for a crafty fag in non-smoking areas, the freshness of breath, the shampoo smells. Mmmm. But I fell right back into the smoking trap when I was drunk at a Christmas party (I actually started sniffing smokers fingers) and have been stuck here ever since, no matter how much I hate it. And the worst thing is that I can remember how incredibly EASY it was to give up smoking. Allen Carr is right, it’s a piece of cake. AS LONG AS YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT STATE OF MIND TO DO IT. If you’re not, forget it. There’s no way you will manage it without causing yourself and others around you a lot of stress as you fight the urges. When you have the right mind-set it couldn’t be easier. I looked forward to my giving up date as a day of freedom, and it was. My health improved imperceptibly and I only noticed how much healthier I was when I took up smoking again and got the wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath, non-specific pains, bad skin etc back again. Possibly the best part of giving up smoking for me was that I still loved the smell of smoke. This meant that I didn’t have to shut myself away while I did cold turkey and never set foot in pub again. Smokers will recognise that other people’s smoke smells infinitely better than that of their own cigarette. My rationalisation for this is that both of my parents smoked and I associate other people’s smoke-smell with that cosy, warm family feeling. Which doesn’t mean I need to smoke; it’s like smelling your father’s aftershave on somebody else. It’s a brief shot of nostalgia. And you don’t have to go out and buy a bottle and splash it all over in order to feel like that. Just the odd niff of someone else’s is fine. Just got to get my head into the right place. Preferably on someone else’s shoulders.