How began my smoking career?
I think it is always helpful to look back at our addictions and passions as if they were a successful career. Especially ones that have occupied us for an extended period of time.
They are no different from any other professional careers — highs and lows, emotions, philosophies, dedication, hopes, sorrow, pain, glories. But when on a whole there are more instances of successes than failures, they get to be called successful, even great careers.
If the number of trophies lifted is the criteria for the success of a footballer, the number of ‘episodes’ taken is the criteria for success of an addiction. I look at it this way, at least!
Hence, just as successful professionals write their autobiographies so that: firstly, they can clean themselves, gloat about themselves and earn from it, secondly so that they can understand themselves and their successes and finally so that other people could learn crucial lessons of success from them, I thought it would be apt to write my own addiction story as I have been a success at that.
However, I want to limit myself only to the beginnings, that is, on how the career successfully started.
In autobiographies, this is the part I most engage with as it allows me to learn what it took for that person to beat the odds and conquer the game. It allows me to learn important psychological attitudes, mantras, and motivations needed for a successful life.
With all these purposes in mind, I want to begin:
My addiction for a long time has been of — cigarettes. So, this is my story of success.
Background and the yearn
I was 14. Too young, if I think about it now that 2 has already multiplied me by itself at the time of this writing!
The place I lived in was located in the middle of the woods and was cold. Although it didn’t snow, the wind was lethal, especially in winters. If you didn’t wear any wool, they hit you mercilessly as if you had been whipped by a stick in your numb hands. It used to get very foggy in the winters. I always liked fogs as they allowed me to remain unseen. They create a sense of mysticism. A sense of suspense.
I was a shy, lean and a lost kid. In school, I had friends with whom I could talk stupid and chatter but I don’t remember having any kind of intimacy or serious, sensible, deep discussions with any of them. In fact, in hindsight I can say that I didn’t have any connection with anyone whatsoever. As to the place I lived, friends there were none. So, social communications and contacts were limited to guardians at home and although they were intimate — as per them, I didn’t enjoy nor find them relevant.
All this had led to me being all by myself almost all the time at home.
A few years before those days, the story was different. I was entering into my teens, I didn’t need meaning, I didn’t need intimacy. I didn’t have questions and curiosities, hence, I didn’t need answers. The superficial relations at school would be followed by hours of senseless TV watching. But since electricity used to take leaves frequently, I had committed myself to going through a copy of The World Almanac and the Book of Facts. I was obsessed with it. With the amount of information there, I was just in it all the time.
The most important thing I did with it though was that I spent hours and hours looking at maps of various countries, debating with myself as to where I would live in the future. This decision making in the abstract had become a project for me. At times, I thought of India, at times Brazil, Australia. My criteria began to clear up gradually as I figured out that I loved snow and ocean, hence, I had to be in a place which not only had both but was also isolated. It had to be isolated. Maybe because I thought isolation was a natural thing to yearn for.
After an extended debate of about 3 years, I had decided to settle somewhere here in the future:
That is how the pre-teens had gone by. Just imaginations and reveries in solitude.
Coming back to 14, things had started to change dramatically. Suddenly it was as if both the mind and the body needed completely different things than before. The Almanac seemed dull and boring: The ideal place had been decided, favorite nation had been decided, favorite sports had been decided, favorite photo of the year had been decided — all pages had already been seriously consumed. There was nothing more to do. TVs didn’t have the same charm as before, studies were irrelevant as before, but time just didn’t fly by as before!
It was then that I had slowly begun to like music. Maybe because there was nothing else to do. I had cassettes and a cassette player and I listened to songs, wrote down their lyrics in a copy I had allocated, used to record favorite songs in an empty cassette, and just played around that way. But all this only when there was no one at the time. Suddenly, I had also started to grow weary of others’ presence, so when I was not alone, I used to stroll around in the woods, just thinking of what I had done and what I should do next with cassettes and songs.
It was then, during those strolls, that I had started to yearn for cigarettes. I do not remember anyone close to me being a smoker apart from an old Australian who lived nearby who used to smoke a pipe and the smoke used to smell great. Maybe it was his influence, but the idea of me smoking cigarettes had started to get my heart beating more. It felt like a challenge, an adventure. I even began to imagine myself at my Canadian home — smoking cigarettes!
The Struggles
In retrospect I can say that it was the only thing I thought could bring meaning into the otherwise dull life.
So everytime I went for a stroll, I began telling myself that I should smoke. But I never dared. Everytime I thought about it, or reached near a shop, my heartbeat increased, I sweated and nervously returned back. I just couldn’t gather enough courage.
What if someone saw? What if they complained? What if I coughed? What if I didn’t know how to smoke? What if I had a heart-attack? What if I died?
Then gradually, the purpose behind the strolls started to be to smoke. Every time I left home, I took a few Rupees, an old lighter and a commitment to myself that I would smoke that day.
I went near a shop, my heartbeat increased and I saw someone I knew there and so I returned back without smoking — This went on and on and on!
It had already turned into a vicious purpose, not just a game, a passtime, a test, but a complete meaning of life! Nothing else mattered. I kept thinking about the ideal place and time to smoke. I thought about where I should smoke while I was at school, in the bathroom, everywhere, everytime! The heartbeat increased, I got nervous…it just took over me.
And then one day I amassed enough courage and bought 2 cigarettes from a rather obscure shop in the evening, located at a distance from my place. I must have had a bad day at school or something, I do not remember. But something significant must have happened, else, I wouldn’t have been able to gather such courage.
So, I remember, I bought them and kept them in my shirt pocket. Then I went to an isolated place near the entrance to the woods and took one cigarette out and nervously took the lighter out from my pants pockets. But I couldn’t dare to light it! I got too nervous. I sweated heavily. Then I said to myself I will come and smoke this tomorrow and kept it back in my pocket and left.
Next evening, I go to the same place. I pull out the cigarette from the shirt pocket. Only to realize that both have broken into two pieces! I remember feeling relieved. Maybe I told myself that I would be coming back tomorrow and then I threw them away and returned back.
Breakthrough : The day
It was a Saturday. Everyone was away, I was all alone at home and I had the entire day and the entire place, including the periphery to do it! I took a shower at 12, wore a shirt with a pocket and left home with a few Rupees and a lighter.
I still remember the moment I bought those two cigarettes. It was at another obscure shop. I had nervously gone and said to the shopkeeper, who was an old man —
‘मलाई चुरोट दिनु (Give me cigarette)’
My heartbeat had skyrocketed then. I thought he would call the police or something and I had made a huge mistake. I had even planned as to what to say if he asked anything. I would say it was for my brother. With all this in mind, I wanted to backtrack. But the way he looked at me, didn’t allow me to.
‘कुन? (Which)?, he asked.
It was at that moment that I relaxed. All pressure, everything just gone!
‘जुन भएनि हुन्छ (Any one will do)’, I had said and with a frown he had handed me two 555 cigarettes. I looked around and hastily kept it in my shirt.
I didn’t even know the price. I remember giving him 10 rupees and looking at him to see whether or not he was okay with it. When he seemed satisfied, I left.
I hastened to the roof of my dwelling and nervously took them out. I looked around. Placed one in my mouth. I looked around again. I took the lighter out. I looked around. Then pressed the button on the lighter. I looked around. It ignited. I looked around. I took the cigarette to the lighter. I didn’t have time to look around. The tobacco lightened up, I unpressed the lighter button. I looked around. I saw smoke. I got nervous. I released it from my mouth and placed it in my hand and tried to imagine myself — a smoker! But I didn’t know how to smoke. I tried to remember each and every instance where I have seen other people smoke: movies, streets. I couldn’t gather an image. I just had no idea how to smoke. The smoke kept increasing and rising. I got really nervous. I placed it in my mouth. I sucked a little air from it. I noticed the tip getting brighter. I didn’t dare to inhale it. Not that I knew I was supposed to do it. I then immediately exhaled it. IT WAS MY FIRST PUFF!
After that, I hastily repeated the process, 2–3 times and dropped it on the ground. Not once had I inhaled it. But since I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, I thought I had smoked and smoked well. I stepped on the remaining part and threw the bud out of the roof towards the backyard. I looked around and came downstairs.
I HAD DONE IT!
I felt proud of myself. I went to the bathroom and gargled with toothpaste. I do not remember what I did after that. I may have done something apart from thinking about smoking for the first time in weeks!
I may have also promised myself I would never be smoking later that evening. I remember vaguely, throwing the other cigarette away.
But I didn’t quit. I kept pursuing that type of amateur, incomplete smoking. I didn’t tell anyone. The nervousness had gradually decreased.
I was surely feeling more secure, mature and stronger though. That particular year went by.
Getting professional
There was a guy who had joined our school the same year I had begun homesmoking.
The time I am going to talk right now is the time when I started to get open and social about my smoking. He was the guy I first confessed to. It was because he smoked too. We had lately gotten close because he used to kind of listen to the same music I did. During one normal conversation, smoking came up. I remember him talking about how he and his friends smoked at his previous school. I opened up. He didn’t believe it. Apparently, I was not one of the people he thought would be a smoker. I still remember his expression. We made a pact. We were going to smoke that weekend. He was already a hero for me.
Heroism, reverence, looking-up-to — towards people who smoked was very crucial and influential in shaping my perception and decisions on cigarettes. Suddenly, people who didn’t smoke appeared to be weak, useless and even irrelevant.
I then decided to find people in the classroom who smoked. It was more like, I was looking at the world and my entire life in terms of smoking and cigarettes.
There was a guy in my classroom who used to give me a very hard time since the fifth grade but lately he had started to go his own way we had disconnected. When I found out that he smoked heavy, I started to look up to him. After my smoking activity that weekend with the guy I mentioned earlier, I found this former bully of mine being friendly to me. This must have been cigarette is doing as my smoking-ally must have told everyone in the classroom.
There was suddenly a buzz in the classroom. Everyone behaved differently with me. Now I know why.
It was then that I noticed that a lot of guys in the classroom have been smoking for quite some time. This made me want to be closer with them. They were typically people who were tall and dominating. I may have even been ignored by them before. But I found myself being close to them without much attempt. It was not like I used to just be around them as they grouped up, spoke and I sat there silently smiling at everything. I WAS THERE! I was looked up with respect, at least I was treated with. Gone were the days of being bullied. Heroism, reverence and looking-up-to these were the keywords.
It was during those days that I had watched The Basketball Diaries. Ignorant to the eventual consequence of the protagonist, his early adventures, friendships, smoking and drugging really got my adrenaline flowing. I was then hanging out with ‘friends’ and was having intimate conversations for the first time in my life. I was really high on adrenaline. Name any crazy drug, and I would have probably consumed it without a thought. But thankfully that didn’t transpire.
In fact, in more than one instance, I was told that I didn’t even smoke properly. I learnt to do that pretty quick.
A tool of Freedom and Spirituality
Beneath all social hubbub was lurking a psychological and philosophical phenomenon.
If you have been with me up to this point, I will be honest and tell you the actual reason behind me writing this. It is to interpret and understand the following:
During those days, whenever I thought of smoking, whenever I actually held a cigarette in my hand, whenever I found myself in places where young guys smoked, whenever I thought of those people, their places; I felt free and joyful. I felt as if a whole new world was there and I was on the verge of entering it. It was a world that would free me from my present bondage and take me towards my destination. Everything I ever wanted would be found in that world and Cigarettes were the boat that would take me there.
Today, when I think of those feelings I had back then, I find a strange similarity — with the feeling I have today when I think most optimistically of my future. When I think of doing things I always had and wanted to do, I get the same feeling.
Cigarettes were a tool for freedom and joyous-experiential-enhancement before I even had a clue what they meant. I may have used it whenever I wanted freedom, joy and enhancement. This may have resulted in me getting more and more dependent on it. BUT all that for some other day!!!!
Others are flying rockets, I am writing bullshit.
