I've been craving cigarettes like crazy all day. This wouldn't be unusual if it was August 2004 which is the month - almost SEVEN YEARS AGO - that I gave up my almost-pack-a-day habit.
You never really give up.
From time to time over that seven year period I have had a cigarette. Never while sober, always after a drink or four. The last time I smoked was after Woogsy and I trudged up Oxford Street on a Monday night after several wines and many more whines to buy a pack from the bottle-o. But that was months ago.
But today I am craving cigarettes like crazy.
I'll never understand it. It can't be a nicotine or a psychological or even a habit thing - surely not after almost seven years? Why would I just wake up today and think I'm a smoker all over again? What blip in my brain forgot that I hated it, felt trapped by it, was begging to give up? What tiny synapse has failed to fire and remind me of the wretched cravings endured and outlasted for months and months? How could I forget that the reason I gave up was pregnancy, but the reason I stayed given-up was parenting?
I didn't want to be 'that smoking mum'. That mum who snuck away at odd times of the day and night and returned smelling of guilt. That mum who swore she'd never smoke in front of her kids but wasn't strong enough to resist. Not because she's a bad mother, but because there was something controlling her that seemed bigger than her gigantic love for her kids. Bigger even than that.
My own mum smoked, back in the day when everyone did. Many of us have memories of a smoky eighties-bright kitchen and waves of laughter as coffee was poured and cigarettes lit. I recall the thick haze of the room almost as effortlessly as I recall my mum's sagging disappointment when I revealed at twenty that I was a smoker too (because eventually, you can't hide it any more, you just can't wait). My choice; her guilt.
Mum gave up smoking before I did. After an almost thirty year habit, she just quit one day for good. Her strength and resolve was inspiring, but never once did she say to me 'when are you giving up? When will you stop?' She knew that choice had to be mine. She knew how frustrating it was to have other people try to make that choice for you. It had to be me.
In the end it was Maxi-Taxi and how grateful I have always been to my little man for that. There was no 'final cigarette', no endless goodbye. The double line just meant that the cigarettes went and that was the end of that. I missed the way cigarettes focus you in the present, make you stop and just 'be' for a moment. I missed the easy banter as I shared one of those moments with colleagues, party goers, the girl on the train platform. "All the fun people smoke," I remember a non-smoker friend complaining at one party or another. I agree with her - the smokers conversations are always fab and delicious. Even if the cigarettes are not.
Easy enough to walk away from in the end, when it stops being about you and starts to be about something bigger. The relief at not imposing my unhealthy, unattractive, untenable habit on other people was enormous. Despite that, I think I will always be the kind of person who has one or two during a night out, but that's okay. I don't go out enough to worry about such matters and I've long made my peace with it.
But today. Today I am craving cigarettes like crazy and it reminds me, once again, that you never really give up.
Have you ever been a smoker? How do you stay given-up?
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Edited 11/7: Just wanted to amend the dates! It was actually August 2003 that I stopped smoking so it's been EIGHT years. Given that Maxi was born in May 2004, I thought it best to clarify that otherwise I don't look like such a fab mother, do I? x
PS - No, I didn't give in to the cravings. Never do. That's the secret. x
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I'm obsessed with giveaways galore right now...
My own...
... My sister's...
...and Down that Little Lane's.
Have fun! x