Smoke screen Begone!

A long absence, a short abstinence and a tiny little twitching pain in the dead centre of my uni-brow, if I had one. Its been three weeks since my last cigarette. 7 years and 15 cigarettes a day later I have woken up to the fact that smoking is like too much make up. Its only looks cool in professionally taken photographs with nice lighting. I wish I’d figured it out earlier. There is nothing cool about the little black hard bits, set in clear sputum that my lungs cough up or the recent throat swab I just had… except maybe that old, familiar, beautiful feeling of the smoke curling down your throat and snaking out your nose…

There is no question about how disgusting a habit it is. And there is absolutely no debate about how damn good it feels. The psychological addiction of having a cigarette between your fingers and the various physiological and geographical associations you make with them is as strong a bond as your closest school friendships. Quitting is like restructuring your life in more ways than just kicking a habit. It’s changing a huge part of who you are. Saying “I’m not a smoker” is something that involves rewiring a large part of your brain.

I had a very long life line on my left palm that extended nearly up to the middle of my wrist. In 7 years as a smoker it’s shrunk considerably to a modest curve that ends just below my mound of Venus. Hopefully I will stay cigarette free and it will work like Wonder-Gro, returning my Life line to its former meandering glory.

So far I’ve survived a 3 day non-stop weekend of drinking with a big bunch of smokers, living with a smoker and perhaps its the passive smoke that’s gotten me through these last few weeks in one piece. But it looks good. I make a living with my voice. Smoking for me is like coming to work drunk every single day and sexually harassing my co-workers.

*Flexes muscles in show of strength and resolve*