All that hate and all those lies takes a lot of energy. But worst of all I knew that I didn’t hate smoking at all. I knew that it was exploiting a little particle of possibility inside of me: The possibility that I hated myself. The smoking attached itself to that part of me that could believe that my life was not worth living. And I absolutely hated that.
I have done some amazing things in my life through shear force of spirit: no more amazing than I would expect of any human being in my situation. But this becoming a non smoker is right up there with discovering pieces of my fathers plane in the Simeon mountains of Ethiopia at 29 years of age. This is up there with meeting my mother at 21 years of age. This is up there with walking off stage to see Paul McCartney applauding in the wings or interviewing Emperor Haile Selassie’s official photographer for The World Service.
I stopped smoking. I had the good fortune and the good grace in Sardinia to say no. I won’t spend thirty to forty times a day reminding myself how much I hate myself. So guess what I do with all that time I have? Besides the fact my productivity levels have gone through the roof. It’s nothing special. No great shakes. It’s simple. What I do with all that time is live. I just live and its “Pretty Good”.
Powerful posts! Maybe they should get seen elsewhere…in the press maybe…I'm sure the NHS could use them too!
x
That's a good point they should be used elsewhere!
And that insight about the particle of possibility that you hate yourself, well yes I know that feeling as an ex-smoker! As a teenager smoking was a nihlistic act of rebellion, and there was a sick pleasure in knowing it was only bad for me, other things were also bad for me but I couldn't control them so to smoke was a perverse way of taking control, I choose this, knowing it's bad, gonna die one day anyway so why not go a step towards embracing that eventuality!
When my grandad realized I'd become a teenage smoker he was saddened but instead of getting emotive he simply informed me that every year the tobacco companies were set on creating thousands of young new addicts to replace those lost to tobacco related diseases. In other words he told me I'd been had! I didn't give up for years but his words did stay with me. Today it's the populations of China and India that are succumbing to the habit, tobacco advertising is of course going hard sell there.
While ciggie packets here now carry warnings it was once suggested that smoking was actually good for health! I saw evidence of this on the side of an building as I drove along a South London road, in large painted letters, rendered ghost like with time stood the words “For Your Throats Sake, Smoke” (and beneath it the brand name which I could not make out)…Kind of takes your breath away….