Ashtrays (Still) No More…
By Rab MacWilliam
Stopping smoking. It’s not been easy. Depression, hacking cough, mouth ulcers, spots, sore throat, homicidal tendencies… but things are slowly improving.
In the last issue of this magazine, I documented my bitter divorce from this most evil of weeds, and I’m pleased to say that, four months on, I’m still off the little fuckers. However, the reasons I cited for my decision – health, finance, impending ban – don’t really matter any more. It’s now purely a matter of will, an existential test of my ability to resist what remains a profound temptation to regress to my previously slavish adherence to Phillip Morris et al.
The first few weeks were much easier than I had imagined. The full-size patches afforded me a hazy, doped-up protection from life, and it was like I was a teenager in the late 1960s again. I even floated up to HMV at the Angel and bought early Joni Mitchell (the ineffable Blue album) and Crosby, Stills and Nash (‘Suite Judy Blue Eyes’ – far out, Stephen). But as I came down through the various patch sizes, harsh reality began to reassert itself, and my body (and psyche) began to suffer, as above. 
However, I seem inadvertently to have taken over some sort of mini-Messianic role in our own People’s Republic. Although the point of my previous article was to reveal my pathetic weakness and basically take the piss out of myself, it’s quite extraordinary the number of people who stop me in the street and ask ‘Still off the fags, Rab? I might have a go myself.’ Indeed, my Yugoslav, chain-roll-up-smoking business partner is now darkly muttering (something he’s very good at) about stopping, and my wife, a life-long smoker, will now only allow smoking in the kitchen. The other day in Hamdy’s, when I went to buy a pack of fags for my dearest, I was refused unless I solemnly promised they were not for me (I kid you not). None of this health fascism was ever my intention, nor do I wish to encourage it.
There is a certain, smug moral high ground in the renunciation, if this is important to you, but the downside can range from the mildly unpleasant to the almost unbearable. Sure, you’ll save quite a lot of money, but you’re also saying goodbye to a part of your life that you’ve always taken for granted and has been a fundamental, if unnoticed, aspect of your personality. It’s the psychological equivalent of having your arm amputated. In a recent piece in the Guardian, confirmed puffer and smoking advocate David Hockney commented ‘I smoke for my mental health’, and I can understand that.
But I have to say there is a certain enjoyment in not smelling like an ashtray, not spluttering and coughing all day, and tasting food after all these years, as well as significantly fewer trips to the cash machine. The downside is that my sense of smell has returned (mmm… the exhaust fumes on the A10) and public transport is a bit of an ordeal. I never realized that so many disgusting deodorants existed. And you can always tell who had a few drinks the previous evening.
Am I not making too much of this smoking business, you might say? Well, maybe. I have a magazine to fill, and confessional articles seem to attract readers’ attention, but think long and hard about quitting as it’s a damn sight more difficult than the National Health propaganda machine may suggest. Also, the NHS follow-up is virtually non-existent (‘How’s it going, Rab?’ even just once a week would be nice, but I guess they’re more concerned with targets than with their patients’ well-being). Nonetheless, you owe it to yourself to pack it in. It’s not even as if you get a buzz out of it. Spending a lot of money and lighting up just so you can feel as you’ve always felt doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. The Alan Carr simplistic, patronising and happy-clappy method seems to me to be bollocks, but he’s right on this one.
In the meanwhile, if you are stopping on July 1, I wish you luck. If not, the same applies. |
