A conversation with my addicted half

It's really true. I've quit smoking. Again, yes (read here and here but just for a moment). On Sunday evening, October 15, I lit my last cigarette at exactly 11:16 PM. The worst version of myself clung to the smoking stick, like a Labrador drooling in anticipation of a bowl of kibble. And you know what Labradors are known for: their insatiable appetite. Yes, awkward and somewhat unpleasant comparison, but it was just that obsessive. I'm doing well. With the occasional aid to curb my craving for nicotine (and to keep my companions' lives pleasant, because I'm not getting any easier), I'm getting through my days smoke-free.

By the way, I have a sense of smell that would make a drug dog enviously jealous. If I don't smell fried eggs, my nose picks up something being smothered in garlic. Or the scent forms in my nose, because no one else seems to notice it. I see and smell cigarettes e-ve-ry-where or I think I smell or see them. By the way, there are also suspiciously many people with bad breath, because I've been overwhelmingly aware of that for the past three days. Yesterday, I took a sip of wine at a friend's house, which created a connection in my mind between the stimulus of alcohol and nicotine. Everything went haywire. My breathing became a bit shallow, and I started to spin my ring around my middle finger at a rapid pace as an acute nervous tic. Those two are inextricably linked for me. And suddenly, I saw my sad but healthy smoke-free existence before me, causing the addict in me to engage in conversation with my more rational self.

That addict sounds a bit like this: “This was your last, your very last cigarette ever. Of your whole (hopefully) longer life, yes. That means you can't smoke at that friend's wedding, when you uncork a bottle on vacation, or when you have a double-tongued, meaningful conversation on a sun-drenched terrace. You can never smoke again. Not let that nicotine into your lungs. Period. But one can surely be okay. You can do that, just on the weekend and then you leave it again. Yes, you can do that.‘ And then I almost think I can do it, even though I know that one cigarette becomes a pack and that pack becomes a carton, and that carton makes me a chain smoker again. If I make a mistake, I will puff away everyone in possession of smoking materials. By the way, this is not a suspicion, but the hard reality. I can still see myself sneaking a stray menthol cigarette at three in the morning, even though I despise it in daylight.

Sad, I know. I actually feel like crying when my addicted half wedges a foot in the door, so that I can still have a chance in the future. Aaaah, please? But on my chest, I feel a kind of pressure, somewhat similar to how I feel it mentally, at the thought that I can never smoke again. That's why I try to stay away from smokers. Not because I find it stinky, but because I'm afraid I'll end up heavily sniffing in their smoke cloud. There you are in the smoking aura of a stranger. Fortunately, the understanding among smokers is great. The nicotine addict in me pushes all objections aside. Standing outside in the cold between the appetizer and the main course. The smell of an ashtray in my hair. My voice getting an octave lower with each passing year. Suddenly, it's all not objectionable, as long as smoking can happen.

But quitting has its advantages. For example, May started drinking more because of it. I get it, an extremely good excuse. Your taste improves by leaps and bounds, so you eat more. Not really an advantage, except that everything is even more delicious. You get to be a sort of flipped version of yourself, that's me now. I feel like Roadrunner on speed, even though I'm actually consuming fewer addictive substances. And I can endlessly complain to you about how my addicted self behaves inside. Look, and that makes it all a lot more bearable.