Just one more....

I've been smoking since I was a child. My entire adult life I identify with the cigarette. I was thinking this last night, turning the white stick between my thumb and finger, knowing that without it, not only must I breathe on my own, but I've got to stand on my own too. Isolation can be a killer.

I'm telling you this because last night I told you I would blog just one more post on smoking.
Ha ha!! Telling myself 'just one more, just one more...!'

Writing is good, writing is healthy, writing can help purge all kinds of things, writing can get you out of dark holes. Writing is not smoking (you hear me stiggers, you hear me???)

A cigarette will make me feel better. It has done this morning. I got that "marvellous feeling of peace and tranquility". But, Carr tells me, I'm addicted, "It is not really peace but the ending of aggravation."

Will I ever get out of the woods where the tobacco plants grow?

Last week I was walking perilously close to complete strangers in the street just so I could have a whiff of their smoke.

I can imagine that on a night out, I'll go and stand in the smokers compound and just oh, breathe it in! If I'm hurting in my life, I may really want to do this. If I want to reclaim the 'old me', (old me? Who's that then ey?!) likewise.

Stick me behind a bus though, and I'm pissed off, choking on it's fumes, suffocating.

It's different though isn't it. I choose to light a cigarette so I can choke. I choose to ride a bicycle but I don't choose to be stuck in traffic gridlocks, choking. The suffocation is the same thing though, innit.

Oh mercy. I have to change my entire thinking. I have to totally unidentify myself with this white stick.

Help is at hand!

"Be clear in your mind," Carr's telling me, "you won't escape from it unless you make a positive decision to do so." (Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth... again..)
"Do not attempt to stop smoking before you have finished the whole book." (Phew)
"As you read further your desire to smoke will gradually be reduced," (not my first time this...)
"Do not go off half-cocked; this could be fatal. Remember, all you have to do is to follow the instructions." (I'm actually onto chapter 7 - Brainwashing and the Sleeping Partner. Brainwash me, brainwash me!!)

Right, there are no fags in the house, so it's an opportunity for me to write another post (write what stiggers?)

This way I can hopefully disassociate blogging and smoking, writing and smoking. All my adult life remember, bar one year and one week. Last time I started again during my masters; writing. Writing/smoking goes hand in hand, love it! Though desire began in the student union bar one night not in the library one day... can I have a drag? Just one?

Right.
I am clear in my mind
I am clear in my mind
I AM, I AM CLEAR IN MY MIND