Not sure if it’s just me observing that many people smoking cigarettes. Could it be the pandemic that made a lot of people pick up this habit? It’s been almost two years since I quit, cold turkey. No cigars, no vape, no shisha, nada. Life is not easy, my friend – I am happy with the choices I made, but sometimes, I question this decision.
I found myself secondhand smoking – going behind people who do just to smell the smoke – sometimes, like the mouse in the cartoons that floats when he smells the cheese. One gentleman looked funny at me – I think I was getting too close. And not just in our neighbourhood, but everywhere.
The thing is, no one really wants you to quit – de government certainly not since most money from the outrageous price a pack costs (I quit when it was 17-18, now I understand it’s 25$) are going towards the taxes. Anyways, don’t start if you haven’t picked up this habit – it’s not cool, and it will never be (again).
Also, it seems that more and more characters in on the screen smoke. Or at least Cylian Murphy (Tommy Shelby and Bobby Oppenheimer). Ah, the good old days…
Below is a newsletter I wrote two years ago, exactly today, on the same topic.
Title: I Love Smoking
Spoiler Alert coming!
The subject line is inspired (and by inspired, I mean verbatim) by the first episode – actually the first scene – of Mad Men.
For those who don’t know, Mad Men is a show about some (mostly) guys from an advertising agency in the ’60s – you know, when you used to go into the doctor’s office and he would offer you a cigarette.
The main character is in a restaurant trying to write some ad copy for Lucky Strike. When he asks the waiter why he smokes, his answer is simply:
I Love Smoking.
Now, how’s that as a subject line?
I’m still trying to figure out if this email is about the power of the first impression or about… cigarettes.
Because they have been part of my life since… forever.
I don’t say I love many things, but unfortunately, smoking is one of them.
I started smoking relatively late compared to my collogues, when I was around 16. But I soon catched up, and as anyone who knows me would say, anything that produces smoke it’s good by me (actually, not everything because I only smoked cigarettes, cigars and vape – but you get the point).
Recently I’ve met online with a friend of mine from back home, and he saw me vaping. He remembered when I visited him at one point and we were watching a movie that he couldn’t follow because of the vapours produced by me.
And the only thing he remembered was that after each 20 minutes, I was asking to pause the film to go out and…. have a smoke.
Smoking is a conscious decision at the end of the day, but it’s heavily influenced by nature. I have pictures with my dad holding me while smoking – something not acceptable now, but totally normal back then (remember, people used to smoke in court – watch Bobby Kennedy – Jimmy Hoffa interrogation footage).
As I said, I started out late, but I recovered the lost time.
Because it’s not just a social thing. If that had been true, my first thought for whatever I did wouldn’t have been – do I have cigarettes?
I used to (hint) smoke a lot even when I was all by myself (pun intended).
Now thinking about it, everything was circumventing around smoking – you need to have one before going to bed, one (or two) in the morning with the coffee (or tea, in my case).
It goes without saying – one after each meal.
Sometimes (and I know I’m not the only one who’s guilty of this), if I was to choose between eating or having a smoke, I would go with the second.
And again, it’s not just the nicotine addiction.
We also need to take into consideration all the substances they put in the tobacco these days – substances that weren’t around ten years ago, and some of them work the brain.
But it can work your brain only up to a point – for the rest, you need to be dedicated.
You need to love spending a fortune (I spare myself a ten days vacation each year ANYWHERE in the world – but you always have money for smokes), and the entire ritual of buying them, hitting the pack a couple of times before opening it, pulling out all the papers they put in there, pulling out the first cigarette from the pack and lighting it up – it does taste special, like no other from the same pack.
You need to love the different ways you can light a cigarette. Or the different ways you can hold one it and get rid of the ash.
And you know it’s rewarding – you get to have one after each (small) task.
Having a client meeting? One just before the call helps calm you down. Meeting went well? light one up to celebrate.
Went bad? light one up and everything will be taken care of by itself.
Writing an important email? after finishing, you get the reward.
Done with one section of your workday? It doesn’t matter if you had one 10 minutes ago. You’re done with that, and you can’t go to the next because you haven’t had your hit.
Writing a newsletter like this would cost me around 10 to 15 cigarettes. 1 before because I need inspiration—one after it’s done because I deserve it.
At one point I need to take a break, for a smoke obviously.
I need to come back at it before sending and reading it one more time, so that calls for a couple. You get the point.
I feel like having one just now.
I think they will put up my picture at the headquarters of Phillip Morris after this newsletter (After writing this and when I was just about to hit send, I discovered this press release from Philip Morris saying they want to end Marlboro cigarettes in UK in the next 10 years. There’s nothing more Donald Draperish than this PR. It’s like he wasn’t cast in Thank You For Smoking because he was busy working on this statement.)
Coincidently, I’ve also quit smoking this year (close to a month now). Or better yet, stopped smoking, because quitting is easy and did it many times before.
Staying that way is harder. I’m not saying I will never take a drag every now and then because I probably will. But I don’t see myself being there again.
It’s hard but not impossible.
And in life, nothing great comes without sacrifices. Giving up something you love might sound primitive, but giving up this is one of the best things you can do. It took me a while to be convinced.
Not even after my father passed away from lung cancer I didn’t stop.
And it’s not like I don’t want to have it – I heard this craving will be present for the rest of my life. I think I’m ready to deal with it.
For those who interact with me – be patient, please.
My intention wasn’t to praise cigarette smoking but to tell you that you can do all the things you thought of being impossible (there are many praises, and I can’t help myself humming one song in my mind, where essentially the lyrics say whenever I’m sad, I reach to my pocket, grab a smoke, light it up and everything goes away; the song is in Romanian but we’re not the only one who have this in their culture).
And I haven’t even started reading that magic book that’s well known among smokers – Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Stop Smoking.
Did you ever smoke cigarettes?
Tell me your story, curious to hear.
