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place. They would gladly pay what I charged that lady to be able to smoke only two cigarettes a day.
They make the mistake of assuming that casual smokers are happier and more in control. In control
they may be, but happy they are not. In this case, both the woman's parents had died from lung
cancer before she became hooked. Like me, she had a great fear of smoking before she smoked the first
cigarette. Like me, she eventually fell victim to the massive pressures and tried that first cigarette. Like
me, she can remember the foul taste. Unlike me, who capitulated and became a chain-smoker very
quickly, she resisted the slide.
All you ever enjoy in a cigarette is the ending of the craving for it, whether it be the almost
imperceptible physical craving for nicotine or the mental torture caused by not being allowed to
scratch the itch. Cigarettes themselves are filth and poison. This is why you only suffer the illusion
of enjoying them after a period of abstinence. Just like a hunger or thirst, the longer you suffer it,
the greater the pleasure when you finally relieve it. Smokers make the mistake of believing smoking is
just a habit. They think, 'If 1 can only keep it down to a certain level or smoke only on special
occasions, my brain and body will accept it. I can then keep my smoking at that level or cut down
further should I wish to.' Get it clear in your mind: the 'habit' doesn't exist. Smoking is drug
addiction. The natural tendency is to relieve withdrawal pangs, not to endure them. Even to hold it
at the level you are already at, you would have to exercise willpower and discipline for the rest of your
life because, as your body becomes immune to the drug, it wants more and more, not less and less. As
the drug begins to destroy you physically and mentally, as it gradually breaks down your nervous
system, your courage and confidence, so you are increasingly unable to resist reducing the interval
between each cigarette. That is why. in the early days, we can take it or leave it. If we gel a cold, we
just stop. It also explains why someone like me, who never even suffered the illusion of enjoying
them, had to go on chain-smoking even though every cigarette had become physical torture,
Don't envy that woman. When you smoke only one cigarette every twelve hours it appears to be the
most precious thing on earth. For twelve years that poor woman had been at the centre of a tug of war.
She had been unable to stop smoking, yet was frightened to increase the intake in case she got lung
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cancer like her parents. But for twenty-three hours and ten minutes of every one of those days she had to
fight the temptation. It took tremendous willpower to do what she did, and, as I have said, such cases
are rare. But it reduced her to tears in the end. Just look at it logically: either there is a genuine
crutch or pleasure in smoking or there isn't. If there is, who wants to wait an hour, or a day, or a
week? Why should you be denied the crutch or pleasure in the meantime? If there is no genuine
crutch or pleasure, why bother to smoke any of them?
I remember another case, that of a five-a-day man. He started the telephone conversation in a
croaky voice: 'Mr. Carr, I just want to stop smoking before I die.' This is how that man described his
life.
'I am sixty-one years old. I have got cancer of the throat through smoking. Now 1 can only
physically cope with five roll-ups a day.
'I used to sleep soundly through the night. Now I wake up every hour of the night and all I can
think about is cigarettes. Even when I am sleeping. I dream about smoking.
'I cannot smoke my first cigarette until 10 o'clock. I get up at 5 o'clock and make endless cups of tea.
My wife gets up at about 8 o'clock and, because I am so bad-tempered, she will not have me in the
house. I go down to the greenhouse and try to potter about, but my mind is obsessed with smoking. At
9 o'clock I begin to roll my first cigarette and I do so until it is perfect. It is not that I need it to be
perfect, but it gives me something to do. I then wait for 10 o'clock. When it arrives my hands are
shaking uncontrollably. I do not light the cigarette then. If I do, I have to wait three hours for the
next one. Eventually I light the cigarette, take one puff and extinguish it immediately. By continuing
this process I can make the cigarette last one hour. I smoke it down to about a quarter of an inch and
then wait for the next one.'
In addition to his other troubles, this poor man had burns all over his lips caused by smoking the
cigarette too low. You probably have visions of a pathetic imbecile. Not so. This man was over six feet
tall and an ex-sergeant in the Marines. He was a former athlete and didn't want to become a smoker.
However, in the last war society believed that cigarettes gave courage, and servicemen were issued free
rations of them. This man was virtually ordered to become a smoker. He has spent the rest of his life
paying through the nose, subsidizing other people's taxes, and it has ruined him physically and
mentally. If he were an animal, our society would have put him out of his misery, yet we still allow
mentally and physically healthy young teenagers to become hooked.
You may think the above case is exaggerated. It is extreme but not unique. There are literally
thousands of similar stories. That man poured his heart out to me, but you can he sure that many of
his friends and acquaintances envied him for being a five-a-day man. If you think this couldn't
happen to you, STOP KIDDING YOURSELF.
IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING.
In any event smokers are notorious liars, even to themselves. They have to be. Most casual
smokers smoke far more cigarettes, and on far more occasions, than they will admit to. I have had
many conversations with so-called five-a-day smokers during which they have smoked more than five
cigarettes in my presence. Observe casual smokers at social events such as weddings and parties.
They will be chain-smoking like the best of them.
You do not need to envy casual smokers. You do not need to smoke. Life is infinitely sweeter
without cigarettes.
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Teenagers are generally more difficult to cure, not because they find it difficult to stop but because
either they do not believe they are hooked or they are at the primary stage of the disease and suffer
from the delusion that they will automatically have stopped before the secondary stage.
I would like particularly to warn parents of children who loathe smoking not to have a false sense
of security. All children loathe the smell and taste of tobacco until they become hooked. You did too
at one time. Also do not be fooled by government scare campaigns. The trap is the same as it always
was. Children know that cigarettes kill, but they also know that one cigarette will not do it. At some
stage they may be influenced by a girlfriend or boyfriend, school friend or work colleague. You may [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]