Smokers’ Corner

After my minor blip in Cyprus, it promised to be a test as to how I’d react when I got back to England.

In the airport on the way back, I did briefly consider getting some duty free cigs for resale purposes and to spend up the last Euros. It would have been a horrendous idea as the post-holiday blues I fear would have inevitably lead to me smoking them. I sensibly opted for aftershave instead.

Typically when I get back from holiday, I usually spend the next couple of weeks chain smoking like a docker due to the abundance of duty free cigs lying around my flat. For me, excess leads to frivolity and after a brief cigarette bonanza it was always a wrench paying £5 for that first packet once the duty frees had been used up.

In the airport on the way back, I did briefly consider getting some duty free cigs for resale purposes and to spend up the last Euros. It would have been a horrendous idea as the post-holiday blues I fear would have inevitably lead to me smoking them. I sensibly opted for aftershave instead.

Stepping off the plane fresh from 35 degree Mediterranean bliss to October in Manchester is bracing to say the least. Last week I said that it just seems right to smoke when I’m in a sunny setting like a beach (more for atmospheric purposes). Funnily enough, it also seems equally right to want to smoke when exposed to extreme cold (for atmospheric and insulation purposes). Maybe smokers will just look for rationale to smoke under any circumstance as I’m sure I could concoct equal reason to smoke when in slightly overcast conditions with a touch of drizzle.

In any case, off the back of the one cig I had on holiday, I did nearly smoke as soon as I got back after almost convincing myself it was okay to have one sneaky smoke. I’ve just got back from holiday so maybe I’m allowed to treat myself to one? Having one on holiday, drunk, as a lapse is one thing, but then following that up by having one as soon as I got back would have been the beginning of a slippery slope. I managed to avoid it by using the anti-climactic memory of how I felt when I did have one to think it probably wasn’t worth it.

Despite this minor mental triumph, I feared the wizened clarity about my want and need to smoke I’d come up with on holiday had been left behind at the airport along with the duty free and my attempt at a tan.

Once the post holiday blues settled down, as did the over thinking about smoking. I got back in the swing of work and routine and just got on with things. I think half my problem with stopping smoking is trying to think about the whole situation so much, both positively and negatively as even thinking about it keeps it in your mind and it amplifies even minor physical cravings out of any reasonable proportion.

I think addiction to anything, particularly smoking, is made up of two different addictions. The mental habitual want and your body actually craving the substance itself and while they overlap, they work completely separately. It is hard to differentiate between the two. The mental side is literally just a little regular nag, usually brought about by social prompts, whereas the physical cravings are few and far between but are much harder to ignore.

I think once the mental aspect can be overcome, the physical addiction will begin to wane in its own stubborn, bastardly time.

I’ve therefore started trying to program a healthy (er) living focus to myself. I’ve been eating healthier food, in a more stringent routine and cut down on going out drinking (as much) and it seems to be doing the trick so far.

The important part at the moment is feeling like I’m in control of as to whether or not I smoke as opposed to feeling like I’m being tethered around by a faceless addiction like a subservient wheezing gimp, as I have been up to now.

I might even take up some more healthy activity of some sort to help aide the process. Running? It’s too dark and cold. Mixed martial arts? Too regimented and ‘hitty’. The only one which seems vaguely attractive is swimming but I get bored very easily......

Nope. I’m fine. I’m not smoking. And I’m fine. If worst comes to worst I’ll start looking into getting a waterproof Mp3 player.