It must be five or six months since I have smoked. I had been meaning to stop for ages but never had and it was with the advent of fatherhood to my second child that I thought I really must knock this habit on the head... Before it knocked me on the head as it were.
So I stopped. Boom. Just like that.
I won't say it wasn't hard. It was difficult but I was determined and it paid off.
However... You would think that the longer you had stopped something the easier it would get? Oh no. More and more these days I have found myself harking back to the glory days.
I find myself remembering all the good times in my life in which I just so happened to be smoking or had a cigarette in my hand. It is very bizarre because these things would all have happened anyway. But, in the wonderfully weird way the mind works, it has decided to throw these images at me as if it was smoking that caused all the great things to happen to me.
I suspect that the insidious nicotine still has a grip on me at some low level.
It has been building up. Slowly but surely, that little voice in my head has been telling me wouldn't it be great to be smoking right now?
It all came to a head today.
I was coming back to work from my lunch break and had to pass the corner where all the smokers hung out. I felt a pang. I used to be one of them. I stopped for a moment.
Hey Richard, hows things?
I said to one of the guys I used to have many a conversation with.
Erm, alright mate.
He answered. He seemed a little awkward.
I turned to another one of my erstwhile bro's.
And you Bill, ya wild man, whatcha been up to!
I gave Bill a mock shoulder punch. Me and Bill went way back.
Not much mate. Not much.
He answered.
I stayed for a few minutes longer trying to coax some conversation out of them. It was like getting blood out of a stone.
I knew what was happening. I was no longer in the gang. I had stopped smoking and as such was now ostracised from the "cool kids" who still did it. Maybe they were envious of my new found longevity now that I was off the tabs?
I sighed and went back into work. I would like to say that being ostracised by the gang had strengthened my resolve not to smoke but if anything it had made it worse. I sat at my desk and attempted to do some work. A thought kept popping into my head, however.
Surely it wouldn't be so bad to just have the one?
Just one ickle-wickle cigarette. Just one. I mean I could buy some, then head down to the corner and chew the fat with the guys. I just knew that as soon as they saw me smoking again I would be back in the club. There would be back slaps and handshakes and manly shouts of celebration.
Yeah, damn it. I was going to do it. Why not? I mean. I had shown myself to be capable of stopping on a whim. I would just have one.
I reached behind me for my jacket and as I did so I noticed Bill from smokers corner coming over to my desk.
Hey dude, I meant to say, did you see my new phone? It's so cool!
He leaned in to show me his shiny new phone. I opened my mouth to ask if he was heading downstairs and if I could come with him.
Then I smelled it. The acrid smell of cigarettes. He stank of them. Absolutely reeked, like a corpse that had been dipped in glue and rolled in a giant ashtray.
Suddenly I didn't feel the urge to smoke anymore.
All pictures sourced from pixabay and in most cases subjected to various manipulations. Except the gif, it was made by my own fair hands :0)
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