No Smoking

On giving up smoking after a life time

I smoked for forty years at least. And I loved it. For the last five years I rolled American Spirit tobacco in green Rizla papers and inserted slim (not extra slim) filters with the hopeless and desperate idea that American Spirit was a somewhat healthier option than other brands. God knows why. It’s just what people say.

My father smoked endlessly, and forever, until he died aged 85. In the last decade of his life, he made a nod to health, taking 4 puffs of a cigarette about twenty times a day, before stubbing it out, once, twice, three times. But still, never quite fully extinguished, so that the spent cigarette smoke would unfurl and pollute whichever room he was in. When I was a smoker (I gave up five weeks ago) and before my father died I liked the fact that he smoked and I could too – indoors outdoors, wherever. I used to be attracted to smokers. Back then, the cool girls at school smoked. The cool boys. The more interesting people. More recently amidst the tyrannical taboo of the very fact of being a smoker, I’ve spent time with strangers and friends outside galleries, or parties, puffing away on cigarettes and enjoying conversation, always oddly covert, like hiding away to take drugs back in the day. It’s all so tame and dignified now. I went to a birthday dinner the other night where the closest we got to doing drugs was passing round a leather handbag the birthday girl had received as a present, sniffing it, and passing it on.

In the olden days you could smoke almost anywhere you chose: Cinemas, the tube, the last rows of the plane, top of the bus, restaurants, bars. Everyone, it seemed, smoked and everyone smoked Red Marlborough which made your lungs ache. I had an uncertain and painful relationship with a man who smoked in bed on waking and also in the bath, which, even to me, seemed decadent.

At boarding school we would take succour from our daily cigarettes. We bought the cheapest of the cheap, Number Six which we called Shit Six. We would slope off to a row of cold, barren loos which stank of dead cigarettes. We would loll around smoking and chatting, sharing cigarettes, stubbing them out and putting the butts behind the water pipes so that we could return to them later. Now and then a nervous house mistress, skinny and probably 40 but in my eyes ancient, menopausal, and a virgin, would fluster in and we would lock the doors stifling giggles.

For years now, I have wilfully disregarded the graphic scare-photos on the tobacco packets, showing mutilated humans destroyed by their nicotine addiction. Its only now, writing this, that I have actually read the facts: Smoking is a leading cause of preventable illness and death. (I think I knew this but ignored it) I have been inhaling carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, tar, arsenic, nicotine, formaldehyde, and many more dangerous potentially lethal sounding gases and chemicals. Carbon monoxide! Arsenic! Who knew?

I decided to stop smoking a year ago, for about the sixth time, when my doctor (quite attractive, about the same age as me) said that the single best thing I could do for my health was to give up smoking. He spoke in a manner heavy with gravitas.

But I only smoke about a four a day, I said.

Ah yes, but that will be more when you’re stressed he replied and I had an image of myself chain-smoking, heart-beating, crazed.

And so I did give up then, for about five weeks in the depth of winter, with the help of a non-nicotine vape. My good intentions cracked one country weekend when the non-nicotine vape ran out, and in the wilds of East Sussex , I couldn’t find one to buy. And so I bought a packet of tobacco and decided I would just smoke for that weekend. What was I thinking?

The downfall was steady and predictable: I decided I would only smoke at weekends, then just after 6pm, just after lunch, just whenever I wanted to. Twas every reason not to smoke. I had breast cancer 5 years ago, I gave up then. I gave up when I was pregnant twice – although I do remember having one at a party, hugely pregnant. Sometimes I used to make myself imagine I was pregnant to stop myself, but it just didn’t ring true. Certainly not in the last ten years. And anyway I reasoned, I don’t drink, and smoking was my only vice.

But when a pack of tobacco crept up in price to £24 – my friend Domie, says you can buy the same packet in Italy for 6 Euros – I did think, that does seem absurdly expensive, but on the other hand, only £12 a week. About what my husband would spend on a bottle of wine. But in retrospect, I think the final straw was when I went to a dinner, having forgotten my slim filters. And rolled one anyway, using a bit of card, the nicotine and tar carousing directly into my lungs. It was cold outside and I was smoking alone. I stood and looked at the other diners through the large glass windows and felt lonely and absurd.

I knew that I needed help this time. And this has to be the final time. My life span is at risk. But I discovered that my London borough does not offer help. No clinic at the GP, no support line, no friendly pharmacy with a no smoking script and free nicotine patches. To be eligible in my borough, I need to be pregnant, or have mental health issues, or addicted to drugs or alcohol or all of the above. When I rang NHS stop smoking line, I was told that the professional advisors were not able to take my call, they were too busy. This was after a very lengthy process of registering. My name, date of birth, smoking history, address, postcode, name of my first child etc. This happened three times. On the third attempt, desperate and determined now, I asked for a call back and was told that could be at any time ¬ – a day, two days, three or four.

A woman called me three days later. I was walking in the park with my dog. At one point she asked me how long I had given up for, and when I replied, four days, she hesitated and said they wouldn’t be able to help. She could advise, generally, but I wouldn’t be able to join the support programme. To be eligible, I had to have given up for two days or less. It was like being punched. I begged and pleaded but she was immovable. When I pointed out that I hadn’t been able to get through on the telephone on day 1 or 2, and no one had told me of these rules, she apologised. When I pleaded once more, she dismissed me by saying there was no more point talking in circles. I hated her then – her polite, calm, firm voice, meant to soothe.

Desperate and afraid that I wouldn’t be able to continue giving up, I found an app, called Smoke Free and joined up. A happy bot ‘checks in’ with me each day, and sends congratulatory badges when I have reached a milestone. About a week into my smoke free life, I received a text offering to upgrade my membership. Now I would be sent a vape and could access support. I have no idea how this happened, but somehow, somewhere, my data had filtered through to my borough and they had offered the upgrade. This information is not stated anywhere. The nice lady in support told me via message, that the best way to give up would be to use a nicotine vape, which I had already bought of course. At this very minute the app tells me I have given up for 1month 4d 3h, which is really good to know. I have also regained 8.5 days of my life.

Photo by Elsa Olofsson on Unsplash