Farewell, Bad Habits
As we again approach the final days of the most gruelling month of the year, I am reminded of all the New Year’s resolutions that were taken up so earnestly around one month ago. Usually a few days (perhaps only hours) after the excesses of the festive period have finally sunken into your chocolate and alcohol addled consciousness, a lot of people will resolve to cut out their vice of choice, starting immediately after that last beer, burger, cigarette, ‘share’ pack of sweets (delete as appropriate) has been consumed on the evening of the 31st of December. It’s somewhat ironic that we often chose to ditch these treats that give us that often-needed dopamine hit in what is arguably the toughest month of the year, proving that we are temporary masochists when it comes to indulging and regimenting our impulses. However, as one such masochist, I have resolved to cut out tobacco for good and for the first time after many failed attempts, I have been largely successful.
Despite only half of people who made resolutions in 2022 reporting that they stuck to all their promises, we often feel duty bound to make some kind of attempt at ‘self-improvement’, usually as a kind of repentance for the excesses of the month before. For many, it’s unhealthy or animal-based foods, for others it’s alcohol or finally renewing that gym membership. For me, and vanishingly few others, it is tobacco smoking. Despite the well-known degenerative effects of tobacco smoking, it has been a very guilty pleasure of mine for over a decade, but as I grow older, and more aware of the fact, I have to contend with the ever-mounting concerns about ill health and mortality.
However, it is not solely for health reasons that I have jettisoned the undoubtedly putrid habit. As well as the unjustifiable act of spending £20 on a small pouch of tobacco in the midst of an economic downturn, it is just not the social binding agent that it was once. As a recent study shows, smokers are increasingly becoming socially isolated due to a number of factors, not least of all the declining social acceptability of lighting up, and the increased demand for entirely smoke free areas and the rise of nicotine alternatives, such as vaporisers. Gone are the days where you could strike up a conversation with a stranger by asking “excuse me, could I borrow your lighter, mate?”, and you’d be rightly eyed with caution if you asked for a puff on someone’s ‘iced cherry bubble-gum’ vaporizer outside of Wetherspoons on a Friday night. It was the shared ritual of inhaling noxious fumes with the rest of the damned in the smoking pen, that created the sense of camaraderie that created night-long, or possibly even lifelong friendships, and there doesn’t seem much that can replace that.
But as I say farewell to the friendship-building, musty clouds of rollie smoke, I know it is for the best, and that the loss of conviviality is a price worth paying for good health and longevity. I now ponder what will be the next target on the hit list of vices, come next January, and wonder whether each one struck off will give and take away in the breath like the ciggies have. Perhaps I’ll take up exercise and find that my lethargic ways were preserving some kind of innate critical thinking skill, and the subsequent activation of my limbs will reduce my brain’s ability to write and think, as all my energy is pressed into the mechanical improvement of my health. Perhaps not. Alas, here’s to you, you smelly, unpopular habit, you will be missed, although probably not by lungs and other vital organs.
