Here’s a statistic that I find very interesting: only 16% of English people smoke. Only 16%. That’s the lowest figure since, I don’t know, smoking – or licensed suicide as we should call it – was launched on an unsuspecting public. That’s barely one in six people, which strikes me as still quite a lot of people.
I am the worst type of smoker, which is to say an ex smoker. Having not puffed on the weed since 31st December 1993, I have grown not just to dislike cigarettes. I hate them with a passion. Perhaps it was my coping mechanism but every time I smell a smoker, her/his breath, clothes, hair, house, I feel quite ill. Given my family history, giving up cigarettes was something I really had to do before it was too late.
My mother’s side of the family did not do too well with fags. I lost my mother to an almighty heart attack many years after she had developed circulatory problems, heart disease that also took her mother. Her father and brother did not die of heart disease: they died of lung cancer. It was no coincidence. These were the smokers’ diseases.
My mother’s story was the saddest of the lot. She was in her early fifties when things started to go wrong. Slowly, but surely, her health went downhill and by the time she reached her mid fifties, the damage to her heart and circulatory system was done. That, I know, could have been me. She was repeatedly told that whilst some of the damage could not be reversed, her health and her life could have been maintained by giving up cigarettes, but she never even tried. The last 20 years of her life were awful.
I don’t hate smokers – that would be ridiculous because I know exactly how hard it is to quit – but I do hate smoking. Those early weeks of cold turkey in 1994 were almost unbearable. Somehow we made it (my partner quit at the same time). I am so glad there was no opportunity to vape because the temptation to stay addicted to nicotine but lose many of the carcinogens would surely have taken me back, eventually, to returning to tobacco.
The ban on smoking in public places has made such a difference too. I used to hate going to pubs because you would come home stinking like an ashtray but not anymore and even most smokers think it is a good thing.
It is easy to carry on smoking if you can afford it. And I well recall the feeling that I might be the lucky one, that the effects of smoking would be spared, that I would live to old age with my 20 Peter Stuyvesant (and many more on bad days). I could still play football and cricket. Smoking didn’t affect me. I was the lucky one. Dream on.
When buying my newspaper – only old people like me buy newspapers – I am amazed when I see the price of fags which are over £7 a packet, maybe more if you want a decent brand. My partner and I have not spent over £100,000 of already taxed income since we gave up. What happened to all that money? (Answer: bringing up two children, holidays, house improvements – you know the usual things in life that we certainly wouldn’t have managed too well without.)
Let’s take this a step further. If both of us still smoked 20 a day at £8 a packet, our net spend would be almost £6000 a year. I am not a rich man – far from it – and £6000 is a fortune to me and, as I have already noted, that’s taxed income.
Good luck to everyone who is giving up now and in the future. It’s tough, but then so is having a heart attack and getting lung cancer. The medical jury is still out on vaping but many medics say it’s less bad for you than cigarette smoking so go with the medics.
I wish I’d never started and I’m very glad I stopped. Smoking kills and it’s killed everyone on one side of my family. That certainly wasn’t a price worth paying.
