kicking the weed

i got a sort of grip on my nictoine addiction after decades of trying by treating every cig i didn't have as a victory. instead of seeing each one i did have as a failure. little by little i snuck up on my personal nico-monster until i eventually got the so and so surrounded. he is now coralled somehere in my psyche. but he ain't gone. oh no. trust me. he ain't gone.

for the last more than a couple of years i have been working alongside the West Glamorgan Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse. i started with them as a horticultural tutor but have now moved on to working as a creative writing tutor. it's a great buzz. i meet some lovely inteligent people. and some absolute toerags.

once wgcada clients begin to surface from their addiction they continue to refer to themselves as addicts. its just that now they preface it with the word recovering. after all no-one knows better than they do how easy it is to slip off the waggon and head back to the smack. or the booze. whether this indicates the existence of the 'addictive personality' i don't know. there are a lot of reasons why individualsbecome addicts. all i would say is it shouldn't be discounted.

in my own case i have reached the point where i can more or less take tobacco or leave it. sure it tastes foul. and i can't breathe well the day after a cigarette. which is one hell of a motivating factor i can tell you. especially as i have discovered latin dancing. but i still enjoy a nico-hit. and i wouldn'tbe surprised if other retired puffers share this unrequited vulnerability.

a beautiful young friend recently went to cuba for a holiday. she brought me back one massive cigar. what to do? obviously i couldn't throw her present away. still i couldn't smoke it with my family. all non-smokers and seriously anti. so i waited till new years eve and instead of renouncing the evil weed as i had done for year after year previously ... i lit it up.

it took some perseverance i can tell you. the first few drags nearly killed me. but such was my perversity, not to mention alcohol quotient, that i kept going. my reward was that by the time i was halfway through, and one or two of my mates had had a draw (i did mention the alcohol didn't i?) i was just loving it. the drug had unearthed all my hungry little receptors and were they having a field day? i really didn't want that small brown thing ever to go out. ever.

but it did. and i was desperate for another. drunk as a skunk at 3:00am on 1st january 2007 i would have smoked anything. everything. so i begged a roll-up from another carouser. rolled up and lit up yet again. and guess what ..... this time it really was foul. thank heavens. and i haven't gone back.

i think that what the experience reinforced in me was the understanding of myself as a smoker who doesn't smoke any more. rather than someone who is out of the woods completely. and i think that's the best its going to get.

onwards and upwards.

peace and love