‘ My nicotine infatuation ended, thanks to my wife’
For years I was the worst type of tobacco addict, a social smoker, too busy entertaining and being entertained to be aware of how many cigarettes I was consuming.
Most of the time they weren’t even my own cigarettes. I smoked by proxy on nights out at the weekend and then, during the week, overwhelmed with disgust, I wouldn’t even look at a cigarette pack, let alone stare down the length of a lit one.
I was a serial quitter. Sometimes months would go by without me smoking and then, on another night out, a sudden pang for nicotine would overtake me and I’d find myself scouring the darkest corners of the bar for a fellow smoker.
To be honest, smoking was an adventure that started during my student days at Queen’s University Belfast. I was a shy and incredibly reticent 19-year-old, preferring to spend long hours in the library tower block reading and writing poetry than actually conversing with other human beings.
Then one night in a quiet corner of the Student Union bar, a friend gave me one of his cigarettes and something in my brain burst into life.
Somehow, the act of smoking made me feel more eloquent and daring. I felt as though my tongue had been magically untied.
On one of those nights out, I met my wife, Clare, a medical student. Smoking was anathema to her entire outlook on life but she tolerated my social smoking, at least at the start. Eventually something awoke in her, probably the realisation that she was going to be stuck with me for the rest of her life, and she asked me to quit.
My infatuation with nicotine evaporated thanks to the love of my
life.”