'No, thank you. I don't smoke.'

january '11, smoking me trying curls (disaster)

February 26, 12 a.m. A date, numbers, an indication of time. In my case: an indication of remembrance, a turning point and hopefully a point of no return.

Let me explain.

I used to be a heavy smoker. A pack a day, easily. But after the tiny little second that turns 11.59 into 12.00 (the moment in which I put down my final cigarette), I became a non-smoker. I haven’t touched a cigarette since. I said ‘Bye bye, my Burning Buddy!’  I said ‘Bye bye, bad breath!’ Funny thing is that I haven’t missed my buddy or the act of smoking at all.

Now I ask myself: why couldn’t I stop before? Why was it so difficult to say ‘No, thank you’ whenever somebody offered me a cigarette? Why did I keep on inhaling tar and nicotine and chemicals, knowing that I didn’t enjoy it anymore? What was all the struggle, the fear about? Because, yeah, as so many smokers, I was scared of the whole non-smoking idea. Now I realise it was just the mind playing a bad trick on me. The word ‘stop’ or 'the act of stopping’ is nothing to be scared of. But before I could see that, I had to put the f(***)inal cigarette down.

Why the 26^th? The reason was a practical one: it was the departure date of my direct flight to Sri Lanka. Final destination: the Nilambe meditation centre, where I would spend the first 3 and ½ weeks of my journey. Smoking is strictly forbidden in Nilambe, so I decided to throw away my newly bought pack of cigarettes... but I shoved it into in the drawer of my bedroom cabinet instead. No dustbin, no, because I want to have something to look at, to be reminded of, when I return home. It’ll be my relic, the poor leftovers of ‘the old me’.

Why the hell so scared of quitting? Because the cigarette was my friend, my consoler. It was always there. If I felt lonely, I smoked. If I was stressed, I smoked. And while writing, I was a complete chain smoker. My brain has been sending me messages for years: ‘Feel your lungs, they hurt’, or ‘Don’t you notice your morning cough’, or ‘You have a constant ache up your nose’, or ‘You’re out of energy’, or ‘Your breath stinks’. Smokers will recognise this kind of thinking: it’s an ideal way to built up a huge feeling of guilt and shame towards yourself (‘I’m ruining my body’), towards friends (‘I feel like a dragon blowing awful fumes into their faces’), or towards family, co-workers and so on. I was absolutely conscious of my cigarette smell, my wrinkles (getting deeper every day), my blackened lungs and my grey complexion after hours of smoking and chatting in my favourite pub.

Do I feel a difference now that I am a non-smoker?  No, not really. I’m sorry, but you won’t read fantastic outcomes of my non-smoking existence. The answer is no, whatever all the StopSmokingGurus might tell you. And this 'no, there's no big difference', is a difficult part to accept. So, dear smokers: try to accept this 'no'. Just deal with it. And read it again: no!

The first three weeks: yes, of course I felt a huge difference. Physically I felt fresher, discovering my nice breath an’ all, even had the impression that my lungs grew bigger and that I could smell the world around me again (the latter not always an attractive idea, because some people carry a horrible stench around, smoker or not). Mentally I felt relieved, stronger and free: all the negative thoughts about ‘wanting to stop’ disappeared with the last cigarette.

But now, after almost two months, there’s no difference to be felt anymore. Nothing left to notice, simply because my body and brain got used to not smoking. And I feel perfectly fine. Even when I’m in the same room with a chain smoker (and Indonesia has quite a few of those!). Which reminds me: Indonesia is actually the WORST place to try and stop your smoking habit. It’s the EASIEST country to get hooked, because cigarettes are extremely cheap here, and you’re allowed to smoke everywhere: on trains, buses and in restaurants. Especially men tend to chain-smoke as soon as they sit down for coffee or tea.

But to return to the absence of feeling: NOT feeling a difference anymore, is actually the most scary and frustrating part of the stopping process. Now I feel like I’ve never been a smoker. Not that I want to start again. The point is that after the first ‘hurrays’, the loud ‘good-for-you’-exclamations and my inner ‘I’m-so-proud-of-myself-smiles’, there’s little left to boost about. Not smoking just becomes a new way of living. And thank god for that.

p.s. I really hope that by the time I return to Belgium, all my closest friends and family members will have returned to their original state of being, namely the 'non-smoking' one. Because if not, I will have a difficult time refusing all the cigarette offers!