An ex-smoker tells us why smokers despite what they think don't really enjoy smoking!
There was a time when I would smoke anywhere between 10-15 cigarettes a day. 20 on the days I drank alcohol. Most of these 20 cigarettes, I didn't enjoy. Some even made me feel sick. Yet, I would put aside those bad feelings, gather some courage and take one more puff! Waiting for someone? Smoke a cigarette to kill the wait even if I had had one just a few minutes before. Can't figure out life? Smoke a cigarette to figure it out.
Sometimes, I'd try to quit. But, in not more than a few hours - the nicotine craving would kick in and just wouldn't go away! An hour, two hours - and my mind would be convinced - smoking is good! It tastes so nice! It is a ritual! It helps me relax! It helps me escape the extremely idiotic world! And I would smoke and feel good, laying rest to all my quit smoking attempts.
It is only when I understood that I didn't really enjoy cigarettes, but it was the addiction that was making me appreciate it, did I start feeling terrible about smoking. And this knowledge, I owe to Allan Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking. It is so simple - nobody has ever enjoyed their first cigarette! It tasted foul, made you cough and was something that your body did not accept. However, for whatever reasons, we smoked more and more until we fell into the nicotine addiction trap. Then, our bodies required us to smoke to feel normal.
Now, compare this to tasting a pizza or a hyderabadi haleem - I fell in love with these dishes the first time I ate them. It was their taste and not their addictive potential that was making me enjoy them.
What most smokers need to understand in order to quit smoking is that cigarettes do not taste good. As an experiment, I have stayed away from them for 30 days, and smoked one. The very cigarette that oncetasted like heaven, felt foul and the smoke that was so satisfactory choked my throat a little bit. Yes, I did experience a little head buzz, but it was nothing extraordinary and certainly not worth the damage it was doing to my health.
Photo source: Getty images
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