Seven Highly Effective Steps:
Apparently being a “quitter” is a bad thing. The word itself annoys me as does the act of quitting. As I result I’ve never previously aimed to quit anything. However in the past two months I’ve quit three very important aspects of my life, my job, London and smoking.
I started smoking because I broke up with my personal trainer boyfriend and I wanted to torture my body which I had been steadily improving for the two years I dated him for. I remember looking at my stepdad’s cigarettes thinking, ‘I could smoke one of those’. I didn’t though. I got into my Golf, rattled down the road, and bought my own box of Marlboro Lights from the Shell Garage. The thing with smoking is, I believe that you have to own it. There is nothing more annoying than people who say, ‘I don’t smoke’, and then bum a smoke off you in the next breath. Actually there is something more annoying, random strangers asking for a cigarette. Personally I’m not in the habit of going into bars and asking folk for a sip of their tasty beverage so I don’t see why people should ask me for a cigarette and then get pissed off when I lie, ‘sorry it’s my last one’. I don’t mind friends and family bumming but that’s not bumming, that’s sharing, which is very different. Obviously there are some things that should never be shared, like STD’s, toothbrushes, email passwords, underwear and sex stories with your folks. Gross.
Anyway once I’d returned home with my box of 20 I poured myself a glass of wine and lit my first cigarette in a very long time. Up until that moment I’d smoked sporadically as most teenagers do, but I’d decided I was going to be a smoker and my asthmatic lungs weren’t going to tell me any different. I still remember the guilt I felt. Not guilty because I was tarring my fragile lungs with thick tar but guilty because my stepdad had been relegated to an outside area for months because I was asthmatic and it wasn’t good for me to be in a house filled with smoke. I still feel guilty, actually that’s a lie I don’t.
I come from a family of smokers. My family have historical links to Rothmans, so for me it wasn’t a very rebellious act however my extended family loved to lecture me about how filthy it is. What they didn’t realise was that they were just encouraging me to smoke more. I would light up just to annoy them because reformed smokers are easy targets. The Reformed Smoker is a character I am not terribly fond of. For years and years they were at the centre of the bar surrounding everyone in their wake with a film of tobacco smell and thick smog, and then all of a sudden you light up 50 metres away from them and ‘they can smell it’ and then they look accusingly at you and say ‘when are you going to quit that disgusting habit?’ The answer to this question is invariably, ‘never’, because you’re pissed off with them and want to annoy them for all eternity. Reformed Smokers can pat themselves on the back for keeping my lungs tarred for six good years.
My doctor in South Africa is a reformed smoker but I don’t mind because she has medicine backing her up. She also said ‘have you thought about giving up?’ which is an improvement on ‘you must stop that shit’. She then said that I should only give up when I was ready to do so. At that point I really did not care about the black lung or my yellowing teeth and index finger so I just kept on puffing.
Reformed smokers told me I’d give up when I got to the UK because it’s “expensive”. This is true, it is expensive. However London is expensive. For example, I can buy a daily travel card into the city and let me tell you it costs more than a box of 20 and gives me none of the pleasure. When it comes to bandying about the term “expensive” I like to use the “wine economy” to define the price of goods. When I was last home cigarettes cost R28 a box. A bottle of house wine cost about R45 depending on where I went. In this country a bottle of house wine is usually about £15 and a box of cigarettes is just shy of £7. Therefore you can pretty much see where I’m going with this… Obviously it’s cheaper not to smoke but according to the “wine economy” everything is relative when it comes to vices.
So my budget managed to stretch to nicotine, alcohol and taxis (because when I’m drunk wild horses can’t drag my arse onto public transport) and I was happier for it. I was happier until after 6 years my little lungs had had enough. I’m not going to go into medical details because I don’t want to be the one to put you off smoking but I went to the doctor and I left with a sinking feeling. At first I thought I was telling another lie to the NHS but it turns out when I told my doctor ‘I’ve quit smoking’ I was telling the truth.
The thing with the NHS is they are a bunch of flaming ritards. Before you poo-poo me and delete me from “favourites” I’m just going to mention “Swine Flu Hotline”… … …. And you’re back and nodding in agreement. Say it with me, ‘the NHS are a bunch of FLAMING ritards’.
For those of you who don't know, the Swine Flu Hotline was a number you phoned and laymen would read out the symptoms to swine flu and if you had any you were at risk and should stay away from your place of work for as long as possible. Actually, correction, 16 year old's were reading out the symptoms. Now I’m not sure about you but putting a room of pubescent teens in control of swine flu is a fucking scary thought.
I liken the NHS to public transport, it’s great when you’re drunk. Now I know my mum reads my blog occasionally so I just want to clear up what I have lied to the NHS about in case the government get involved and stalk my Facebook account, and then start stalking me, and then realise I wore a burqa to a fancy dress party and my life unravels like a Sandra Bullock film called ‘The Net’. So… I may or may not have told the NHS that I previously smoked 1 cigarette a day and my maximum weekly units of alcohol is exactly 14 and that I NEVER NEVER EVER go over my 14 recommended units of booze.
To all intents and purposes you can imagine my surprise when I realised I’d actually told the truth to my NHS doctor.
I returned home with my antibiotics (it's true they gave them to me), nebuliser, asthma pump, asthma spray, asthma pills, cortisone, inhaling cartridges and the keys to the Death Star which kick start the nebuliser and climbed into bed. Obviously with the black lung a cigarette was the last thing on my mind so I was safe from the dreaded Silk Cuts lying on my side table. When my lungs recovered I thought about my life. It was like one of those cheesy made-for-tv-films where a bunch of kids make friends with a lion cub, they feed it and nurture it and cuddle it but then one day it gets too big and they realise it could kill them. They then release it into the wild to the sound of Bette Midler and a lump wells in their throats as they say goodbye… the sun sets over the African Savannah and they realise they will never experience happiness like that ever again. Their lion cub is gone forever… Saying goodbye to cigarettes was like that except I chose a Phil Collins song instead.
Now I’m a non smoker and I feel weird. Firstly I have this incredible urge to tell people I’ve stopped smoking. Anyone who will listen. Literally anyone. I can imagine this is quite annoying behaviour which is only exacerbated by my other annoying qualities. So what’s the secret? How do you quit smoking?
7 Highly (Effective/Ineffective) steps:
Step One: lie to the NHS and tell them you’ve stopped.
Step Two: puff on a plastic cigarette which gives you a head rush quite unlike anything else you’ve ever had. I used one for about 3 weeks and it did the job. You generally look ridiculous so it’s easy to ween yourself off. Kind of like a toddler with a dummy who continues to use it when he/she is 17.
Step Three: tell everyone you’ve stopped even the lady at Tescos. Personally I like the line 'you used to sell me cigarettes but now I’ve quit so I can afford another bottle of wine instead… because now I’m an alcoholic…'
Step Four: Hopefully someone will say to you 'I’ll believe it when I see it…' This person should be someone you’re attached to. Someone that you need to prove wrong at any cost. Ex partners are ideal, as are incredibly anal and annoying relatives who scoff, 'oh you’re giving up are you?' and then laugh hysterically. Having someone not to believe in you is all it really takes. The minor successes I’ve had in my life have all hinged on people who don’t believe in me.
Step Five: Announce every monthly victory like it’s breaking news. 'I haven’t smoked for One whole month'. Get people to applaud and congratulate you, preferably buy you alcohol. Act smug, being smug makes you realise the pain and suffering and lack of perpetual happiness is worth it.
Step Six: Avoid other smokers unless you can trust them implicitly. I used to be that asshole who offered recent “quitters” a cigarette and then would give them a 'come on…' when they refused. I now realise that I should have been punched in the face for this… I got away lucky…
Step Seven: All good plans come in seven steps so I should think of one last step… okay… here’s the deal… it’s not that difficult… I bought an epilator the other day and pulled my underarm hairs out… that was the epitome of difficult. Buy an epilator and use it every time you feel like a cigarette… you’ll be bald and will develop nervous twitches…but you'll have been successful.
(For more EXPERT advice on how to quit smoking phone the NHS hotline. Or visit their website www.saynotoantibiotics.co.uk)
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