I think about it all the time. At least once an hour, often two or three times. I think about the feel of it in my hands, the sensation of it in my mouth, the euphoric effects it has on my body, the type that are so blissful they have always left me craving more.
Sometimes, I will be grappling with the stress of a day and I will want to cry out for it right then and there, slap bang in the middle of the street.
No, not sex, thank you very much. I’m talking about smoking, of course.
Oh, God, how I miss it! It’s been two years, four months and 16 days since I last had a cigarette (not that I’m counting). And yet still, it calls to me almost constantly, the devil on my shoulder whose voice is just as powerful as it was decades ago when I began smoking as a teen.
As a certified addict, I’ve had to give up many things in my time: Alcohol, cocaine, bad men. None has been as hard as giving up my beloved Marlboro Golds.
I’m not proud of this fact. I know it’s bad for me. I would hate to see my own daughter with a cigarette on the go. But when I read this week that cigarette smoking is now as popular with many young people as it was back in 1970, I had to nod my head in recognition (just as I did when I saw those pictures of Dua Lipa enjoying a cigarette while on holiday in Italy recently).
It’s not that I approve, or I am happy that more young people are smoking. But, boy, do I get it.
The stats are striking. Far from getting people off ciggies, vaping is actually reversing the decline in young people taking up old-fashioned cigarette smoking.
Smokingcalls to me almost constantly, the devil on my shoulder whose voice is just as powerful as it was decades ago when I began smoking as a teen, writes Bryony Gordon
Researchers from Penn State University in the US found that teenagers who vape are as likely to take up cigarette smoking as their peers were way back in 1970, when lighting up was as normal as going to the loo.
We didn’t have vapes in the 1990s when I was a teenager. Instead, there were those chocolate sticks, wrapped in edible paper to make them look like cigarettes. We’d all been brought up on them – they were a treat when you went to the newsagent with your mum – and so it wasn’t really a surprise when my best friend Emily and I decided to sneak one of her dad’s Silk Cut during a sleepover when we were 13.
We coughed, we spluttered, and instead of being put off by the coughing and spluttering, we considered it our duty to forge forwards until our young lungs developed a tolerance to it.
Soon, I was spending all my pocket money on trips to the newsagent, where nobody bothered to ask for ID because it was 1993, and a packet of ten cigarettes cost roughly as much as a bottle of water does now.
Smoking was my first addiction – at its height it was a 30-a-day habit – and it would be my last, outliving alcohol and drugs by quite some margin.
Indeed, when I went to rehab in 2017, I was expressly warned by other addicts not to try to quit cigarettes as well. ‘It will only make everything harder,’ said one woman between puffs. ‘Deal with whatever’s going to kill you first.’ And for me, back then, that was booze and cocaine.
But five and a half years into recovery, it was very much smoking. I had been rushed to hospital after my heart started beating irregularly during an ECG, one that my GP had ordered to work out why I kept having palpitations and dizzy spells. I was diagnosed with arrhythmia, and told to give up smoking.
I knew enough about addiction that if I lit one up after leaving the hospital that day, I wouldn’t be giving up until I dropped dead. And so, as much as it pained me, I tried to see my diagnosis as an opportunity to finally quit tobacco.
I went completely cold turkey, battling through the raging moods with nothing more than a metal straw to try and sate my need for a cigarette.
I used an app called Smoke Free in an attempt to motivate myself. It’s still there on my phone, sending regular notifications about the improved state of my health.
In the almost two and a half years since my last cigarette, my risk of lung cancer has decreased by 23 per cent, my risk of heart attack by 15 per cent, and my risk of heart disease has fallen to about half that of a smoker. (Annoyingly, the arrhythmia persists, but my doctor says it could be much worse were I still smoking).
Everything from my circulation to my immunity to my carbon-monoxide levels are vastly improved. I am a faster runner, and a less manic human, because I am no longer flitting around trying to find somewhere to smoke. And yet, despite all these obvious benefits, I still miss cigarettes on an almost hourly basis.
Indeed, as I gaze longingly at people huddled by the ashtrays on public bins, I am reminded of one of my father’s friends, who would often come round for dinner when I was little.
‘I must warn you, children,’ he would say to me and my sister through a cloud of smoke. ‘Cigarettes are smelly, satanic, and damn good after a meal.’
He died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a fag in hand, and still I can’t stub out the notion that the nicest thing in the world would be a few drags on a Marlboro Gold.
Padel, the perfect game for an idiot age
Good on the residents of Versailles, who have forced a hotel to demolish its padel courts, claiming they’re too noisy. The game has always struck me as tennis for those who can’t be bothered to learn tennis, but given our dwindling attention spans, it’s probably the perfect sport for our age.
Hold the remote: Ofcom says scheduled TV is ‘increasingly alien’ to young viewers, with YouTube ‘the first port of call for many’. The only time any of us watch scheduled TV now is for live sport. My grandad called TV the ‘idiot box’. But the more I look at our divided society, the more I wonder if scheduled TV was the only thing holding it together.
Why Katy and Justin’s date is so disturbing
Katy Perry, 40, has recently broken up with her fiance Orlando Bloom and is dating again
Former Canadian PM JustinTrudeau and his ex-wife Sophie Grégoire separated in 2023
Like most people, I find myself reluctantly obsessed with photographs of Katy Perry enjoying dinner in Montreal with former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. It provides an intriguing window on to the disturbing world of celebrity dating, in which people seem to choose their partners not because of physical attraction or the other person’s sense of humour, but their potential for power and publicity.
What fresh anti-ageing hell is this?
Kim Kardashianhas released her ‘first-ever face innovation’ from her shapewear line SKIMS – but it’s being compared to Hannibal Lecter’s mask
What in the name of reality TV is the Skims Seamless Sculpt Face Wrap?
Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand launched the $48 (£36) contraption on Instagram this week to much mockery.
‘Is this a late April Fools?’ asked one beauty expert of the strange mask-like creation, complete with ‘collagen yarns’, which is supposed to sculpt the jaw while you sleep.
Can we not even rest now without worrying about our faces? As Kim herself might say: Enough already.
I’ve got a new favourite royal
The Lionesses have really sorted the wheat from the chaff, haven’t they? Not only has their win displayed the fragile egos of the men criticising the team online, but it also showed us the decent humans. Spotted in the crowds at the victory parade on Tuesday was Princess Beatrice, dressed down and celebrating with her young family. She could have asked for behind-the-scenes access, but hung out with all the other parents instead. With her down-to-earth ways, Bea is becoming my new favourite royal.
