Certainly, that’s one way to look at it. But I’d never once considered that it’s possible to see the situation round the other way. That you’re not giving up or quitting something – rather, that you’re going back to the way things should be.

Apple’s grammatically incorrect slogan sums it up for me – it’s a question of thinking differently: quitting smoking is to smokers as quitting prison is to inmates.

Absurd as that might sound, it’s not too bad as an analogy. Smoking is a prison of the smoker’s own making – the reason the smoker is in the slammer is because he/she was caught by the addiction. Smoking cigarettes is the sentence you serve when you’re caught. But the big difference? The smoker decides their own release date!

Some re-offend within the first week of being released. Some within a few months. Others were inside for so long that life on the outside is just too alien – they actually want to go back to what they know, what’s comfortable – back ‘inside’.

Me? I’m glad to be out. As I understand it (I haven’t read it myself yet), this is one of the ideas that is presented and constantly reinforced in Allen Carr’s famous book: The Easy Way to Stop Smoking. For the cost of a few packs of cigarettes, the investment in this particular book might not be such a bad idea.

It might teach me to think even more different – and stay on the straight and narra’.

43things consists of micro-communities of people with the same goal – you can “cheer” each other, leave comments, get advice from those who have achieved the goal – and, of course (the real purpose of the site), click on the targeted pay-per-click adverts which appear alongside each entry.

Of the few of my selected goals, quit smoking is the one I check in on pretty much every day. Most people on there do a daily update – just little random story-ettes like “just stuck a new patch on my patch-arm” or “wanted a smoke pretty bad while I was on the can this morning”.

But I was on there today and noticed that there was someone in my 6529-strong quit smoking group who had as one of their accomplished goals (I’m not kidding here): to start smoking.

Start smoking? A life goal? Just out of curiosity, I went to take a look – I was astounded to find there is a 260-something strong contingent of people who are of a like mind. People who are wanting to start smoking and are asking for advice such as “what brand should I smoke?”, “how many should I aim to smoke a day to start with?”

I was just about to lay into some of these people, but then I thought: “you know what – I can’t”. They are no more likely to listen to me – listen to anyone - as I was when I was in the same position. If you tell someone not to do something, they’re a lot more likely to go and do it out of defiance, intrigue, curiosity – whatever.

And the opposite is plain irresponsible (there are actually people on there encouraging non-smokers to smoke – that’s just wrong, imho).

So – what do you do? I struggled with it for a while. Some of these I-think-I-wanna-smokers have even educated themselves pretty well on the risks and the downsides to smoking and want to do it anyway. It doesn’t seem like they can be stopped. Especially as they have already taken the step to publicly announce their stated goal on a goal-oriented website: that they want to start smoking.

All I would say or advise would be this: don’t see it as starting smoking. See it as making a conscious decision to take on an addiction that is extremely hard to get rid of. An addition from which some (in fact: most) people just cannot stand the pain of withdrawal and are unable to shake. Don’t for one minute believe that you will not get addicted. Slowly but surely you will – and by that time it’s too late. If that’s really what you want - if that’s your goal - you know what … I’d do Camel Lights. I liked them.

What I was wondering as I was struggling very hard with day 9, was “is there anything that I learned from smoking that I might otherwise not have learned?” In other words, is there anything positive that I can take away from years of something which is almost always portrayed in a negative way?

Now, don’t get me wrong. Anything I do present here should by no means be seen as a reason for a non-smoker to go out and buy a carton of Camel Lights in the quest of these things – far from it. But, being fairly optimistic about everything – there’s got to have been something that was of some use to me:

1. Time Management

Smokers are excellent at managing their time. Or, I should say: excellent at managing their time around their smoking. No matter how busy they are, how many projects are late or approaching their deadline, how late they are to pick up the kids/meet the wife/be on-time for the appointment – there’s always a few minutes for a cigarette.

Let’s just say 3 minutes for each cigarette (to get to where it’s going to be smoked, to light it, smoke it, then go back to where you started). Pack a day. That’s a whole hour per day, every day, that has been set aside purely to appease the nicodemon.

OK – so no more smoking … what to do with that extra time? There’s got to be something else extremely important that needs doing – maybe not 20 times a day.

2. Financial planning

Takes a lot of dedicated cash juggling to always have enough money on you to buy the next pack/carton of cigarettes.

A smoker’s train of thought …

If I go out and buy the sandwich for lunch first, then I won’t have enough cash left to buy the pack of cigarettes on the way back to the office. And I don’t think I’ve got enough to get through the afternoon. Doesn’t matter that it’s raining – I’ll go to the bank first – get more cash out (I’ll have a smoke on the way – yeah!), then I’ll buy a pack of cigarettes on the way to the sandwich shop – that way the sandwich will still be hot by the time I get back and I won’t risk having to stand in line at the cigarette stand.

Bit short of cash at the end of the month? Use credit cards. Or don’t buy food or something. After all – the cigarettes are an absolute life necessity, aren’t they?

3. Prioritizing

The #1 priority for any smoker is the cigarettes. Number one. Nothing comes above it. The cat can wait to be fed. Those people that I invited out for a drink: they can wait. Those people in the meeting waiting for me? They can wait too.

4. Being extra good at socializing and breaking the ice

All smokers have an understanding among themselves that they are the nouveau lepers – the outcasts of the 21st century, and that they must stand together in the face of tuts, hard stares and disapproving looks from grannies with big handbags and women pushing babies through their downstream smoke.

Nowhere is this solidarity more prevalent than outside a bar. Anywhere else, you’re seen as a bit of a freak to go up to someone and say something ‘just coz’. But, because you’re out there smoking and they are too – there’s nothing wrong with a “how’s it going?” or “hey there – damn it’s almost too cold to smoke isn’t it?”. The latter generally gets a laugh and gets the conversation going. In fact, so good is this camaraderie between smokers, I’ve actually heard of single girls (and guys) taking up smoking, in order to have a greater shot at meeting someone outside.

In summary, yep – there are a few things – a few (albeit very tenuous) positives. Some aren’t even positives – they’re just downright selfish. Do they outweigh the negatives? Of course not. Could these things be learned elsewhere – some other way? Of course.

Got to keep thinking positive though!

It’s said that alcohol actually helps metabolize nicotine out of your body faster (this is one of the reasons why smokers smoke way more when they’re out drinking – I know I did, that’s for sure). But once the nicotine was gone (after day 3) – it was back to the beer for pure enjoyment purposes – its beneficial medicinal qualities are no longer required.

A little too much enjoyment last evening. On a school night too. But, what the heck – it was fun to hang out with friends, and nowhere near as difficult being around smokers as I thought it was going to be. It was harder seeing others smoking last time I quit.

Just got to face facts: there’s smoking everywhere. You only notice it when you’re really looking for it. It’s a bit like the New Car syndrome – you buy a new Whatsit ZX200 GTi in a color you invented yourself it’s that rare, and then not one week after driving it off the lot, it seems that everyone’s got one.

I’m talking, of course, about “The Patch”. I just don’t get it. As far as I’m concerned, the best thing you can do with these things is to stick them over your mouth so that you can’t get the cigarettes in.

Just what is the point? The reason people smoke is because they’re addicted to nicotine. It’s painful not to smoke: nicotine withdrawal sets in within a few hours of your last cigarette. The pain, however, only lasts about 3 days – after which pretty much all the nicotine is gone and the worst is behind you (I’m on day 4, as I type)

The patch propaganda tells you that you’ll be a lot more comfortable when you quit smoking by using the patch. They’ve got to be right, too: the subject is still addicted to nicotine – and they’re still getting it! It’s just being administered in a different way – they’re now addicted to patches rather than cigarettes.

There’s still the withdrawal to go through. Now, even if these things “taper” you down to zero nicotine over the course of 3 months, 6 months, 12 months – whatever – you still have to go through the withdrawal – and it’s going to be painful one way or the other.

I don’t know about you – but I’d rather just get through the 3 days and get it over with. I just did, as it happens, and I really feel that I’m over the hump. Coffee is starting to taste different. The air smells a little different. And I haven’t been to the ATM since last Friday – that’s a sure sign that something’s changing!

The withdrawal pains are similar to the feelings of not having had a cigarette after a long flight for example – when all the smokers are clambering to get outside the terminal and take that first puff.

When you smoke, the body is actually in a constant state of withdrawal until the next ‘dose’. The discomfort is enough for most people to crack within the first day or two – but knowing what to expect (or having been through it before) is a definite psychological advantage.

Part of the reason I’m writing this is for me to refer to myself. The day of weakness, the day of succumbing to the temptation of having a cigarette will have to be balanced with the knowledge that this pain has to be gone through again. Once you’ve gone through it – it really is not worth going through again. OK – a cigarette would be fantastic now – but it’s not worth the pain of having to start this process again.

Besides … this should keep the damn things out of your mouth:

What’s in the cigarette smoke? Why do I want it?

Day 3 – let’s take a peek at what’s in this crap anyway. Depending on a number of factors – the brand, the tobacco, the papers used, the type of filter – there are three to four thousand chemical compounds in cigarette smoke. Yummy. We all love chemical compounds, don’t we? There we are analyzing every packet of stuff we buy at the supermarket – checking for dangerous chemicals that have been introduced into our food to kill us:

Trans fats? What are these people thinking? They might as well be serving me pure lard! I can’t be eating that stuff!

High fructose corn syrup? Lethal! Poison! Stay away!

MSG? The devil’s work! Keep clear of it. Certain death will follow.

You get my point. But … if the ingredients of cigarette smoke were to be listed on the pack – well, you’d need to attach a good size booklet. Let’s look at some of the biggies:

1. Carbon Monoxide. This one should ring a bell – literally. We’re so terrified of this stuff that we have alarms in our houses where our furnaces are and outside our bedrooms to alert us to its presence. We can’t smell it and we cannot see it. It can kill at relatively low doses by reacting with (and rendering useless) the hemoglobin in our blood which carries oxygen to – well – everywhere that needs oxygen. So this stuff’s pretty bad. It’s the stuff responsible for killing those that attach a length a garden hose to the exhaust of their car and run the other end into the window. More conveniently available in packs of 20 at a shop near you.

2. Arsenic. Yep – that’s in there too. One of the deadliest poisons known to man. We use it domestically for rodent control. That lovely blend of smoke you’re craving right now? There’s elements of rat killer in it.

3 . Formaldehyde. Quite ironic this one. This is the substance used to pickle bodies and preserve them. In the normal course of things, we shouldn’t really be coming in contact with this stuff until after we’re dead. Maybe it was put in there as a little joke – a little taste of the certain future?

That’s three of them. There’s plenty more. All ending with -ane, -ine, -ene etc., and all stuff that was kept in glass jars behind shatterproof glass in the chemistry lab, handled with rubber gloves and approached wearing safety goggles (and no open flame, of course).

Any questions?

Here are some good reasons to ignore him. Pick the situation you’re happier with.

Cigarettes cost essentially $5 a pack. OK, sometimes you get 2 for 1 and you feel like you’ve cheated Big Tobacco out of a pack. Other times, you’re so desperate for a smoke that you’ll pay $7.50 for a pack of a brand you don’t even like from an airport vendor – or a vending machine.

Even though most people don’t admit it – they smoke a pack a day. That’s why Big Tobacco sells them in packets of 20. It’s a daily ration. A few in the morning, a couple after lunch, then the rest in the evening. Leave yourself one or two to have just before you brush your teeth in the morning – then you buy another pack on the way to work the next morning. Simple.

Pack a day. $5 a day. $35 a week. $150 a month. $1800 a year.

Horrible, isn’t it? And, assuming you’re employed and are paying about 30% of your gross paycheck in deductions, you need to actually earn $2571.43 to pay for that.

That’s a thought that makes my rubber chickens get back on their roosts pretty quickly, that’s for sure.

Just for argument’s sake, let’s say a fictional person (who may or may not be actually writing this article) started smoking when he was 15 and has been smoking off and on for 20 years. Forget all the ‘off’ bits for a minute. Let’s see what that $5 per day would have looked like had it been put into a savings account every month, and left to grow at a (very conservative) 5.0% …

$61,912.00

Shudder. That’s $150 a month, at a savings rate of 5.0% (you could probably do a lot better than that), compounded monthly.

If that’s not depressing enough, let’s imagine that the same $5 per day ($150 per month) is invested in the market for 40 years and earns 11% (an often quoted long term figure for market returns … check out the S&P 500 average since 1970, for example):

Yep – you guessed it – over a million dollars.

$1,108,693.00

… to be precise.

Now, if that’s not reason enough to quit smoking, to stay quit or (if you’re reading this and don’t smoke) not start in the first place … I don’t know what is.

Problem is – you can do that in your late teens. “It’s cool and I want to fit in”.
In your early twenties. “Everyone else smokes – why shouldn’t I?”.
In your mid-twenties. “Everyone I want to hang out with smokes. My partner smokes!”.

There’s always a justifying reason that you keep on hand to explain why you’re smoking. It’s what smokers do.

We all know the risks. Cancer, pneumonia, bronchitis, death, disease, plagues of locusts. Blah blah blah. Yeah – we get it – it’s bad for us but yet we still do it. We have our reason.

But then, you kinda grow up one day. For me – the first time I quit smoking, I was just fed up with feeling like crap every single morning and hacking my insides up every time I attempted to insert a toothbrush in my smoke-hole.

Now, I’m not one of those half-baked, half-assed people who can say to themselves: “I know it’s bad, but I can’t stop. I’ll cut down to 5 a day”. I don’t believe in moderation – you either go the whole hog with something, or don’t bother. I really don’t believe that people who say they smoke 5 a day (or 10 a day or whatever) really do anyway. It’s like asking a gambler how he did … they’ll say:

a) “I’m about even, actually!” (real meaning: down)
b) “I’m a few hundred down” (real meaning: a few thousand down)
c) “I’m up!” (real meaning: even)

Anyway – I digress. That’s a subject for another day. For me – pretty much everything is all or nothing. There’s no such thing as an ex-smoker. An ex-smoker is a smoker who is currently not smoking.

So – if it’s smoking – I either do, or I don’t. And I tell ya: when I smoke – I really smoke. Loads of ‘em. The first thing I think about when I wake up. I love it. It’s difficult to explain to someone who has never smoked – but if you’re one of those people reading this – please don’t start. It really is extremely difficult stop – and some people, as we know – just cannot. They cannot endure the withdrawal pain.

For me – the only way to stop smoking is to stop putting the damn things in my mouth and lighting them. Simple as that. It’s all about will-power. You don’t need drugs, gum, pills, injections, nico-bollocks, smoke-be-gone or any of the other crap that the big pharma has dreamt up to “solve” a problem created by big tobacco.

All you need is will-power. You either smoke, or you don’t. Choose one. And do it.

It’s up to you how long you keep up that state of smoking or not-smoking. Personally, I find the idea of never smoking again more painful than not smoking today. So, for now at least, smoking has been suspended.

Anyone got a light? Kidding …