09-12-2020, 10:28 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-12-2020, 10:31 PM by BennyLava.
Edit Reason: fix typos
)
I was inhaling tobacco smoke when I was 11, to keep up with the big boys. Everyone smoked. I lit cigarettes for my mother when she was on the phone. I recall a brand named "Craven A" (what a weird name) that was advertised as being "good for your health" and menthol cigarettes that were recommended by advertisers, in case you had caught a cold!
In that era (the UK, 50s/60s), no one smoked alone. If you took out a cigarette, you offered the pack around, and people kept informal track of it, the way they still do with drinks in a pub (I suppose. I haven't been in a pub in 30 years). I got to the point where the only way I could keep my smoking down was to not buy any, and just bum them from other people. It doesn't take long before you have to stop doing that, but in those days, cigarettes were still relatively cheap, and if you were too young to buy your own, you could buy single cigarettes from older boys who would split up a packet, at a serious markup.
Sometimes, when I was older, I would make it through an entire workday without a cigarette. If so, I would stop at the entrance doors to a large company which was on the way home. There were always cigarettes in the sand-filled ashtrays at the front doors of these companies, typically just the first inch was smoked and then hastily put out as someone barely had time for a 'quick gasp' between leaving their car and entering the building. I would pull these barely smoked cigarettes out of the ashtray and smoke them. They often had red lipstick on the butt. Sometimes a trace of (too much) perfume which lent them an air of the exotic. People knew I smoked (all smokers knew one another) but no one knew I did this. It was my secret shame.
I finally hit bottom one night, when I was frantically rummaging around in one of those metal ashtrays that open up at the top when you press a button and then close again after you drop in the cigarette. The metal edges were particularly sharp, and I cut my hand while groping around, not a particularly deep cut, but there was tons of blood and it was all very dramatic. To complete my humiliation, I had to go home and explain to my husband what had happened. At that moment, it really struck me how quietly, thoroughly and pathetically I was addicted to smoking. I don't think I stopped right away, but I kept trying and did stop eventually.
It's obvious to me now, but at the time I didn't realise that you can't really mix smokers and non-smokers socially, and that I had to give up hanging out with my 'smoking buddies' if I was ever going to quit. Sometimes that meant I had to sit at my desk while the smokers went outside, took a break, and socialised with each other. I thought that was difficult, until I later compared it to standing around outside with them, while not smoking myself.
A woman once told me she knew she had finally given up tobacco when a crisis occurred, and her first thought was, "my god, I need a coffee". I am tobacco/nicotine free now, for so many years that I've lost count. I just wish I hadn't had to smoke for decades before realising I had an addictive personality, and the only cigarette I can't smoke is that first one. Also, I need a coffee...
Benny
In that era (the UK, 50s/60s), no one smoked alone. If you took out a cigarette, you offered the pack around, and people kept informal track of it, the way they still do with drinks in a pub (I suppose. I haven't been in a pub in 30 years). I got to the point where the only way I could keep my smoking down was to not buy any, and just bum them from other people. It doesn't take long before you have to stop doing that, but in those days, cigarettes were still relatively cheap, and if you were too young to buy your own, you could buy single cigarettes from older boys who would split up a packet, at a serious markup.
Sometimes, when I was older, I would make it through an entire workday without a cigarette. If so, I would stop at the entrance doors to a large company which was on the way home. There were always cigarettes in the sand-filled ashtrays at the front doors of these companies, typically just the first inch was smoked and then hastily put out as someone barely had time for a 'quick gasp' between leaving their car and entering the building. I would pull these barely smoked cigarettes out of the ashtray and smoke them. They often had red lipstick on the butt. Sometimes a trace of (too much) perfume which lent them an air of the exotic. People knew I smoked (all smokers knew one another) but no one knew I did this. It was my secret shame.
I finally hit bottom one night, when I was frantically rummaging around in one of those metal ashtrays that open up at the top when you press a button and then close again after you drop in the cigarette. The metal edges were particularly sharp, and I cut my hand while groping around, not a particularly deep cut, but there was tons of blood and it was all very dramatic. To complete my humiliation, I had to go home and explain to my husband what had happened. At that moment, it really struck me how quietly, thoroughly and pathetically I was addicted to smoking. I don't think I stopped right away, but I kept trying and did stop eventually.
It's obvious to me now, but at the time I didn't realise that you can't really mix smokers and non-smokers socially, and that I had to give up hanging out with my 'smoking buddies' if I was ever going to quit. Sometimes that meant I had to sit at my desk while the smokers went outside, took a break, and socialised with each other. I thought that was difficult, until I later compared it to standing around outside with them, while not smoking myself.
A woman once told me she knew she had finally given up tobacco when a crisis occurred, and her first thought was, "my god, I need a coffee". I am tobacco/nicotine free now, for so many years that I've lost count. I just wish I hadn't had to smoke for decades before realising I had an addictive personality, and the only cigarette I can't smoke is that first one. Also, I need a coffee...
Benny
It is Well with My Soul