Well, I’ve quit smoking.

To be precise–I quit smoking, after over ten years, nine days, twenty hours and fifty-seven minutes ago.  It wasn’t to do with the recent English ban in public places, although I guess that may have been one of the things that finally pushed me over the edge.  In retrospect, I think it mainly came down to reaching a point in my life where I didn’t want to be addicted to something.

On the other hand, my biggest fear, apart from the sheer blind panic of giving up something that I’d relied on through thick and thin for over a third of my life, was of a loss of identity.  My life would be completely different as a non-smoker, and it followed that I’d be different too.  Every decision you make changes you to a greater or lesser degree, and this was a big decision.

But it was starting to make me feel pretty lousy.  I’d tried to cut down and that had only hammered home the fact that, yes, I was addicted, and finally it seemed easier to just get the hell out of Dodge.

Only it wasn’t easy.  Truth be told it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and I guess that I’m not entirely out of the woods yet.  If you know anyone who’s trying to quit then, please, show them some support – argue with them, cajole them, sympathise with them, try to understand that they’re wrestling with a substance that the British Medical Association have said should be classified with cocaine and heroin for addictiveness.

Anyway, this last week I’ve found myself in the interesting position of fence-sitting between two groups with little in the way of common ground.   On the one hand, I still believe that if people want to smoke then they should be allowed to, as long as they don’t cause too much bother to anyone else.  I don’t think separate smoking areas in pubs are really too much to ask given the percent of the population we’re talking about.  And I do miss smoking, there’s no doubt about it–I miss the self-indulgence, the little moments of calm, the way it ordered my life and provided an endless series of “breaks”.

But on the whole, I don’t miss it as much as I  once thought I would.  And … it does kind of smell, doesn’t it?  And while I don’t feel drastically healthier, my asthma’s gone and my tongue is no longer a revolting shade of greenish-yellow.

That’s got to be a good thing, right?