the corner office

I seriously expected to have this website live by now. If that had been the case, then it's pretty definite that I wouldn't be posting this. I'd quietly wait until I'd tried or failed, and then perhaps announce it in passing. Since it isn't, I may as well just talk about it. If I fail, I'll just go through and delete all of these posts.

An hour ago, I smoked the last cigarette in the flat. There are no more. Nothing to tempt me, unless I break down completely and go buy a pack. I'm hoping not to do that. I have my Quit antismoking sprays, and I'm hoping it'll work. Not because of the nicotine DT's, but because supposedly the Quit sprays are suitably strong that if you break down and smoke while using the stuff, you could end up sick as a dog with nicotine poisoning. That may or may not be true, but that's the disincentive that I'm praying will help me when I've failed a number of times before.

So yep, I'm trying to stop smoking. As a smoker for 9 years, I've heard it all, been through it all. I know it's disgusting, I know it's killing me, I know my lungs will never be the same. I'm not naive, just stupid for ever starting, especially after being vehemently anti smoking in my younger years.

That makes no difference.

I stumbled across Mark Pilgrim's addiction essay a while back, and more pertinently, this one. Tobacco addiction is hellishly insiduous, it's addiction, meme and social statement all in one. If you're a smoker, you're part of a special club of people, you're like the old movie stars dragging on a fag on a rainy street corner. You're one of the rebels sneaking a smoke as an act of defiance against the establishment, especially as it becomes more and more politically incorrect. You're a grown-up doing a grown-up thing. The chemical effects are virtually irrelevant at first - it's the social/mental effects. Much like alcohol - your first couple of drinks taste awful, much like your first couple of roots make you cough like crazy. But once the taste is acquired, you're 'initiated'. You've bought into the all-too-human delusion that glorifies the self-destructive bent in all of us. As Ronwen said earlier, when I asked her (since she's giving up with me) - why we smoke, she said 'because it's hedonistic, it's nihilistic, it's cool!'

Yes it is. To a smoker's mind, it's a really cool thing to do. And when you're hooked, non-smokers just don't get it. They never will. Smoking rocks, plain and simple.

But dying of lung cancer isn't cool. Nor emphysema. Nor being disfigured because of throat or mouth cancer, or any of the other cancers smoking encourages. Suffering from poor health and all the things that smoking does to fuck up your body, isn't cool. Waking up every morning with a grotty throat isn't cool. Raucous laughter that degrades into a coughing fit isn't cool. Battling to breathe isn't cool. Being completely hooked to the point of having to structure one's life around availability of cigarettes isn't cool. Reeking of cigarette smoke isn't cool. Not noticing that you reek isn't cool.

And so, finally, the battle between common sense and self-destructive hedonism is afoot. The ashtrays have been removed. It's weird not to see an ashtray in front of my monitor. I see an empty cigarette pack and lighter on my desk; the lighters wil get packed away with the candles, and the empty ciggie pack is going into the dustbin. I'm trying to stop smoking, and already my mind is rebelling, but I've had enough. I can't guarantee I'll succeed, but I hope to hell I do and I'm going to do my damnedest, no matter how much my body or mind complains. Tomorrow is my first day, and here's holding thumbs.