When the smoking stops

It can be so hard saying goodbye to something you care about, even though you know your continued reliance upon it is doing you no good at all. But sometimes you just have to bite the bullet; accordingly, a year ago today, I ended my love affair with smoking.

It was a passionate affair. I was not a hobby smoker; rather I was, as a former colleague described it, “hardcore”. Lighting up was usually the first thing I did on waking, the last thing before I went to sleep.

“It’s easy to stop smoking,” I’d tell people, “I’ve done it dozens of times.” My previous best was three months and even that was interspersed with cheating: I wasn’t really smoking if someone gave me the cigarette, I wasn’t really smoking if I had a drink in my hand, I wasn’t really smoking if it was after 6pm on a Friday …

Most attempts ended in ill humour after a couple of days. There was always something to be stressed about that necessitated a fag or there was always something important that needed to be done. Oh, I fully intended to stop: just not yet.

I tried willpower, patches, lozenges, chewing gum (it upset my stomach), I read books by anti-smoking gurus and winced at public health adverts with yuck oozing out of a lit cigarette. Nothing worked. Not until a friend at the stables – an even more hardcore smoker than me – managed to kick the habit. Her secret? An inhalator.

Puffing away on a little plastic pretend cigarette loaded with a nicotine and menthol cartridge might not look cool, but it worked for me. I could do it at my desk, in the car, in the bath, in bed. And I did. Until three weeks in, I lost my little plastic lifesaver. I was distraught, convinced that I couldn’t manage without it.

I did though… and now I’m free.

Of cars and cleaning

My car is a rather clapped out Corsa called Charlie. I have had him for nearly six years; that’s longer than some marriages last. But I am not kind to him. He is forced to do a 100-mile round trip five days a week; I tell people in his hearing that I want a diesel and I openly lust after a 4x4 with horsebox pulling capabilities. But I think, deep down, it is the lack of TLC that hurts him the most.

My brother, who is an avid Top Gear viewer, adores his car. It is regularly cleaned inside and out. It is on intimate terms with Turtle Wax and air freshener-impregnated cards that dangle from the mirror. Charlie, in contrast, never even gets a bath. His boot is full of dirty winter horse rugs, his back seat further covered in horse paraphernalia – numnahs, bits, parts of bridles, boots, plus plastic bags containing feed dregs and the odd mummified carrot.

My granddad grimaces whenever I give him a lift. He is wary of putting his feet on crisp packets and sweet papers, bits of string, more carrier bags and finds from the fields: broken cut glass decanter tops and a rusted metal crescent that I believe is an ancient bracelet but others with no imagination think was used to attach pipes to a wall.

It was worse when I smoked. The footwell debris was joined by dozens of empty fag packets. Once, when Charlie went for his MOT, someone wrote ‘clean me out’ on one of those ciggie boxes and propped it on the dashboard. Another time, the mechanic told my dad he wouldn’t touch Charlie again unless he arrived in a presentable state.

Perhaps it's a man thing.

Of X-rays and extractions

I went to the dentist today to have the Grand Canyon assessed. The tooth, it seems, is rotten to the core. It is to be pulled out; however, the dentist – a not-scary-at-all woman – says it is a wisdom tooth, “not a proper tooth” and it’s “not worth saving”. Oh.

Far more worrying than the rotten not-so-clever wisdom tooth was looking at the X-rays and what damage my 18-year addiction to nicotine did to my mouth. The dentist showed me where the bone under my gums had dropped down in places. This, apparently, is caused by smoking. No one told me it did that. Admittedly, I was aware that it stained your teeth and wasn’t great for your gums. However, the message that it can make your teeth fall out somehow passed me by. I do not have the zeal of the reformed addict and am not going to hector or lecture. All I’ll say is I’m glad I’ve stopped.

On a lighter note, I have returned home with some brightly coloured miniature ‘bottle brushes’ for cleaning between my teeth. They’re quite a novelty and much more user-friendly than floss. Hopefully, they will help prevent the careless loss of any more teeth.