It starts in your late teens. You’re standing outside your dingy indie bar or with your shirt off at an electronic festival and you notice all the cool people doing it. “Hey I want to be cool”, your subconscious whispers to you. You also notice that leaving busy dancefloors and hanging in the smoking area is a fertile land for making friends of both sexes. It’s quiet, your lack of lighter and a reciprocal taste in cigarette type are all the conversation starters you need. You quickly learn that menthols, while great when sweatin’ on molly, are really lame and that rolling tobacco is ‘cooler’, cheaper and tastes better. You’ve made it to the big league.
After five years I have tried to kick the habit (not for the first time). I thought I’d share some of my wisdom accrued over a week being ciggie-free on the coldest of turkeys…
The internet tells me: “Within a week your sense of taste and smell may improve. Your lungs’ natural cleaning system is starting to recover, becoming better at removing mucus, tar and dust from your lungs (exercise helps to clear out your lungs). You have higher blood levels of protective antioxidants such as vitamin C.”
What it fails to tell you is that your hardened willpower and well-being will be rewarded with constant headaches and unyielding hunger. Un. Yielding. Hungrier than Solange for some spotlight. But that’s okay because your once calm nicotine-filled demeanour will be traded in for bipolar tantrums. You have the joy of pure rage at the most mundane of instances. All your loved ones will encourage you enthusiastically on your achievement while avoiding eye contact, lest they incur your demon rage for whatever minute issue your smoke-starved brain deems irritating. Oh don’t forget the coughing fits as your lungs try to purge the kilos of beautiful cigarette smoke you’ve devoured over the years.
There’s a whole heap of shit I hate about cigarettes, but fuck I can’t remember any of them right now. I decided that I would make a flow chart that perfectly describes how I used to think when it came to having a cigarette, as a coping mechanism:
Click the picture for a bigger version.
Read: CIGGIE BUTT PAIN PT. 1
