Smoked out: why me and a million other people have given up nicotine in 2020

My lifelong love affair with cigarettes was so intense I could only have smoked more if I had slept less. But smashing my vape kit was the final straw

One million cigarette smokers have apparently given up since the start of lockdown. It’s like a massacre. (OK, arguably, the massacre is what would have happened if they had not given up.) I didn’t even know there were that many smokers left. The youngest were most likely to quit – about one in six of the 16- to 29-year-olds, which is coupled with the endearing hypothesis that a lot of them moved temporarily back in with their parents, who didn’t have a clue about their habit.

Anyway, if I had known about this, I never would have given up vaping. I hate feeling like a cliche. I hate it so much that this might be the excuse I need to take it up again, except that’s how everything feels. If I see a single crow fly past, I imagine what sad thing might happen that might justify my vaping again. If I see an elderly lady smoking a fag outside a restaurant, I think: “I should get a vape and go join her, in a gesture of sisterhood. Otherwise she might feel judged.” The pathetic inventiveness of my addiction is taking up so much of my brain that I’m surprised when other things work, such as that I’m still able to read. I just really, really love nicotine, and I have done since I was 14, which is a really, really long time.

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