Stop Smoking

Today has been 70 days without smoking. And today I have been so stressed that I really wanted to cave. To be honest I had this feeling a couple of times since I got back from vacation when I am stressed but only one thing kept me from lighting up. The fact that I have 70 days of not smoking. Bit by bit, like bits of Lego I have built a wall between me and my disgusting habit.

To cave and smoke would be a huge defeat. It feels like a country putting up sand-bags to hold back to sea that is about to flood the land, or an army reclaiming back the land it lost. To put my lips even for a moment on a cigarette butt would reduce all my efforts, all the reclaimed land, back to nothing. I would have been at zero again. Back at square one where I’ll have to climb the slippery slope again. Not smoking makes me feel like I have amassed 70 precious stones and by smoking a cigarette would mean I would thrown my treasure in the fast running river.

Ironically I never started smoking in the army. I think I had one. I started smoking when I began dating this English hotel-girl when I was 19. If you read the blog regularly I’m sure you won’t find this as a surprise. I never was a chain-smoker. Actually when I lived in Spain (and I’m not proud of this) I had three packs while I was at a 24 hour party. Imagine the damage to the lungs! But I console myself by the fact that I have many away. But usually I had three a day, of the lightest make I could find. The fear lies that I might cave, and give in and light up a (not so) Lucky Strike. Not only will smoking damage my health but I hate not achieving my objectives: not to smoke! Ever again. Not to an ex-smoker, never ever smoking again is an intimidating thought. Which is why you should take it a day at a time. Say, I’m not going to smoke today and remind yourself of all the days you have collected not smoking.

And it’s not the nicotine I crave. It’s the action. The act of smoking becomes a ritual. ‘Hmmm’… you say, ‘let’s go outside for a chat and a ciggy’ and a little more pollution to the lungs. Or after a long day a cigarette and a glass of wine can do more than the usual trick. Or a way of networking; ‘hi, do you have a lighter’ opens conversations more efficiently than the doorman at the Hilton. Or for looks; doesn’t Carrie Bradshaw look trendy with the cigarette hanging out of her mouth? (But even she gave it up). Or in bed, when you share one together… hmmm. Or before the bed, when you’re on the date and you’re nervous. (Yes, I can see you nodding. Or if you don’t smoke acting totally holier-than-thou). Or when you’re stressed, one cigarette, to collect your thoughts and then on with the battle of the day. But how does it help? How does a burning stick to your lips help your problem? The answer is: it doesn’t! And that is the most important message I tell myself when wanting to light up. The truth is you don’t want to smoke, you want to ritual. The little Marlboro tradition.

So here I am, writing this, with cigarettes on the brain and no nicotine in the lungs. Fine, my stress levels are through the roof today but that’s because I’m an obsessive-compulsive BabyBusinessMan who is a control-freak. I would have been this way anyway whether I was going to have a cigarette or not. So the sooner I unlearn the Marlboro tradition the sooner I can breathe easier and realise that tackling day to day problems, which is nothing when in the scope of more serious things, will not be solved with a cigarettes.