Nicotine Twist

Today I woke up and smoke 5 more cigarettes. Emptying my eight packet in one week as a smoker. I vowed that this will be my last packet for the year. I'm not a smoker however according to Allen Carr's book entitled "easy ways to stop smoking. I'm already a smoker once I picked up my first cigarette. There's no such thing as social smoker, depressed smoker, only evening smoker. He made it clear that with one cigarette you are already a smoker. We use all those fancy terms to hide our addiction. But the bottom line is - you are a smoker period.

I tasted my first real cigarette when I was just 12 years old. Not counting the fake cigarette my childhood friend and I use to make out of paper and dead leaves.

However in my teens I usually smoke sometimes with my peers throughout high school but I never got addicted. Solely because I hate buying cigarettes. I had this strong notion instilled in me that it's a complete waste of money. The cigarettes I smoked back then were all from my friends who were already hooked. And I was neither a leader nor a follower so smoking out of peer pressure wasn't a problem for me.

However, I was and is a chain smoker. One of my extreme behaviors. I can't just smoke one cigarette and stop. My minimum would be 5 cigarettes. I can smoke chain smoke my way through 10 cigarettes easily.

Anyway, last week I was stressed out about my career in general and it was too early to grab a freshly chilled beer so I headed down to the tabac and got myself a deliciously yellow packet of cigarette. I was always curious about how people choose the type of cigarette they smoke. Ok. David Off. That I can understand but the rest like why Marlboro? Why Parisiene? Why Pall Mall? Is it the taste? The packaging or the price?. But when I went into this tabac my hand automatically reach out for Camel orange. Why? I had no clue. I've never smoked Camel Orange. And whenever I smoked, my first choice would be Marlboro green. Yes! I love menthol cigarettes. Not this time around.

I also don't like smoking in front of people. Even if they know that I "occasionally" smoked. I had all these silly rituals and rules about smoking that I was fortunate enough to not get hooked. Whenever i reach one of my smoking period I never fail to buy an Ashtray. Once I bought a Bulgari ashtray just cos I decided that I would smoke. A week of smoking then that ashtray became a decoration til my best friend remove it from the shelf.  

But this time I felt like it wont be easy to give it up. I woke up craving coffee and cigarette, I have no issues wasting money on cigarettes. And started smoking in front of people. After 10 years of enjoying non-addiction I started to quiver at the mere thought of being dependant on nicotine. The mood swings, the nausea and lack of appetite.

I hope that today is my last day of smoking otherwise I will opt for a more expensive health insurance for the future of my lungs.