Stoptober. This month’s government “beat smoking” campaign. Deffo canna pronounce it wi’ a cigarette in yer moo.
Good luck to all you puffers oot there trying, or thinking about trying, to kick the weed. Not to mention cigar-loving MP Thérèse Coffey – a truly inspirational choice as health secretary.
A former EE reporter pal of mine has proudly reached six weeks and two days of zero nicotine (she probably kens the hours, minutes and seconds as well). For mony years, we were bosom smokin’ buddies – sharing overflowing office ashtrays, covered in a grey fug during cooncil meetings, flirtin’ with solicitors at cloudy sessions ootside the Sheriff Court.
Until now – nearly 70 and a bit breathless – she’s never attempted to kick the habit. Unlike me who’s spent most of my life battling the addiction which almost everyone in my family, including two husbands, detested – bar my tobacco-toasted dad.
It was his fags I used to nick when I was no more than nine or 10, urging my bestie to join me, until she was violently spewy-lewy. My other mate was made of stronger stuff, sharing the packet of five Cadets on the way to, in and after secondary school.
Mum’s last words to me on my first wedding day were: “Don’t you dare let me see you with a fag in your hand.” Having promised my groom I’d give up, that memorable day… I only smoked in the hotel lavvies. Rightly banned from lighting up in oor hoose, I’d an old sofa in the garage for winter solace.
Fear motivated me to stop
Determined to beat it, I was, apparently, hypnotised by the doc at Aberdeen Teaching College – but couldnae wait to light up the moment I came roon. My experience with acupuncture was no more successful, waking in agony in the middle of the night from the pin in my earlobe I was supposed to press to control my cravings.
Every time I put a cigarette in my moo, I could almost see me coughin’ ower my coffin
I’ve even been, courtesy of the then EE health editor, on a two-day course, which ended with us – the failures of the class – happily chain-smoking in the nearest pub.
Yet, it’s two and a half years since I took a long, last sook on a Benson & Hedges. And, guess fit? Surprise of the century – it was easy-peasy! Why? Because of fear.
I was so breathless, I was terrified I’d emphysema, COPD, or even worse. Every time I put a cigarette in my moo, I could almost see me coughin’ ower my coffin. After tests, the doc declared I was too fat, yet fulsome in her congratulations, since I hadn’t had a puff for weeks.
The good news is, I’ve a lot more money in my bank. I miss the white blighters hardly at all. The bad news is that I don’t sit in my bonnie garden half as much, because that’s where I used to chain-smoke and now it reminds me of really craving a puff.
And, while everyone told me I’d feel a million times better, I flaming don’t. But I wouldn’t tell my friend. Good luck, kiddo.
Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press & Journal, and started her journalism career in 1970
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