In which our correspondent attempts to give up the habit of a lifetime…
I’m not normally one to participate in Lent – not for a lack of religious belief, but rather that giving up luxuries just doesn’t come naturally to me. This year, however, the opportunity to finally kick the dirty habit seemed too good to pass up.
It wasn’t until the very morning of Lent that I decided to throw my pack of 20 Camel Blues in the nearest bin and rid myself of the old pleasure that had long become a furtive habit. I was running typically late when I swung into the long-term car park at Heathrow (our skinflint travel policy means I am a regular here) for a three-day stint in the Atlanta office. I saw the transfer bus pull in at the other end and decided to make a dash for it, only to end up 50 yards short, doubled over and coughing, while I watched it pull slowly away.
I walked, leisurely this time, to the bus stop, resisting the urge to spark up while I waited for the next one – always, in my experience, the best way to ensure that a bus shows up, midway through my first drag – and when I got to the terminal threw my fresh pack in the bin, resolving never to let a cigarette pass my lips again.
The three days passed a great deal easier than I expected. While I may have craved a ciggie after a couple of cold beers in the hotel bar, my fresh sense of resolve – and long-repressed memories of my appalling show in the mums and dads race at the kids’ sports day – helped me to fight off the temptation. Even when my colleagues dashed outside for a cheeky one after lunch, I declined their invitations.
Lent provided a handy excuse, but this was really something I should have done a long time ago. I could already feel the benefits – before an important presentation on the third day, I felt alert rather than agitated, and was less tempted to “take the edge off” by dragging on a cigarette moments before.
I was feeling pretty smug, I must admit – who needs nicotine patches, or those ridiculous electronic cigarettes? Not me – I was master of my own body. Next sports day, I would break the tape triumphantly at the finish line, my children’s roars ringing in my ears.
Then it all started to go a bit wrong. Arriving back at the airport, I knew something was amiss straight away – that sixth sense of impending doom that the frequent traveller gets from time to time. The London flight the day before had been cancelled so mine was suddenly heavily oversubscribed. I had been bumped from business to economy for the eight-hour flight and, as I needed to get back, the offer of another flight was of no use.
Illustration by Ben Southan
With no nicotine in my bloodstream for well over 72 hours, I was starting to feel very easily agitated. My pleading to the perma-smile check-in attendant fell on deaf ears, the Southern politeness I usually find so charming only heightening my irritability.
Trying my best to ignore the band of happy smokers congregated on the forecourt, I traipsed off towards security, where I was confronted by a long queue of people who had clearly never gone through the process before. Naturally, the machine beeped as I went through, necessitating an over-zealous pat-down, and my bag was selected for a special search.
I was starting to feel like the day was a test from up on high to see if my Lenten promise was founded on anything other than a pathetic attempt to kick an expensive habit. Walking through the terminal intensified the cravings, as Hartsfield-Jackson is dotted with smoking lounges. Worse still, they’re not like the cloudy glass boxes you see in European airports but actual lounges, one even serving drinks.
Safely making it to the business lounge, I helped myself to my other vice, a large Scotch, in a bid to calm down. Of course, this was how it all started, as a “social smoker” at university, when I clung to the idea that I only smoked when I’d had a drink or was feeling overly stressed. Next thing I know, I’m in my mid-forties and scrambling around the streets of Paris at 1am desperately looking for a tabac after a night out with clients.
Through some depth of willpower I never thought I possessed, I made it through eight hours in cattle class, and even managed to grab some shut-eye. But then came a monstrous queue at immigration and, at baggage reclaim, an agonising wait as, one by one, everyone’s else case came out but mine. I was just about to storm over to the lost baggage desk when it was spat out, all alone, on to the carousel.
My nerves shot, I wheeled it out into the cold morning air. Then I remembered a gift I’d been given by a client in the States – a single, fat, luscious Montecristo cigar. Now, that wouldn’t be breaking my pledge, would it? I mean, you don’t even inhale them.
So did I dig it out? Well, that is a matter for me and the Man Upstairs. But I may have another vice to pack in next year…
