Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking - Allen Carr [59]
What I find genuinely difficult to accept is that we continue to allow tobacco companies and their proxies to promote tobacco to children. According to the Smoke Free Movies website, between May 2002 and April 2003, 82% of top grossing PG-13 films featured smoking scenes and half of all the smoking shots were in movies rated for kids. This is up substantially from 1999–2000, when only 21% of the tobacco shots were in movies rated G, PG, and PG13. People tend to be shocked and horrified at such data, but there’s really nothing new here. Hollywood has always been a key channel for the promotion of the smoking message, going back to the days of Dietrich, Bogart and Spencer Tracy.
It is an irrefutable fact that the vast majority of youngsters who end up addicted to cocaine, heroin or any other of the so-called hard drugs, are introduced to the concept of addiction by smoking tobacco. I have yet to meet a heroin addict who was not first a smoker. If you can help your children to avoid the smoking trap, you substantially reduce the risk of them becoming dependent on heavier drugs. As a smoker you are a walking, talking, real-life billboard for smoking. Being free from that role is a wonderful bonus when you become a happy non-smoker.
CHAPTER 26
THE SECRET SMOKER
The secret smoker should be grouped with casual smokers, but the effects of secret smoking are so insidious that it merits a separate chapter. It can lead to the breakdown of personal relationships. In my case it nearly caused a divorce.
I was three weeks into one of my failed attempts to stop. The attempt had been triggered by my wife’s worry about my constant wheezing and coughing. I had told her I was not worried about my health. She said, ‘I know you aren’t, but how would you feel if you had to watch someone you love systematically destroying themselves?’ It was an argument that I found irresistible, hence the attempt to stop. The attempt ended at around the three week mark after a heated argument with an old friend. It did not register until years afterwards that my devious mind had deliberately triggered the argument. I felt justly aggrieved at the time, but I do not believe that it was coincidence, as I had never argued with this particular friend before, nor have I since. Anyway, I had my excuse. I desperately ‘needed’ a cigarette and started smoking again.
I could not bear to think of the disappointment this would cause my wife, so I didn’t tell her. I just smoked when alone. Then gradually I started smoking in the company of friends until it got to the point where everybody knew I was smoking except my wife. I remember being quite pleased at the time. I thought, ‘Well, at least it is cutting my consumption down.’ Eventually she accused me of continuing to smoke. She described the times I had caused an argument and stormed out of the house or taken two hours to go out and purchase some minor item, and the occasions when I would normally have invited her to accompany me and had made feeble excuses to go alone.
As the anti-social split between smokers and non-smokers widens, there are literally thousands of cases where the company of friends or relatives is restricted or avoided altogether because of this awful weed. The worst thing about secret smoking is that it reinforces the fallacy in the smoker’s mind that he is being deprived. At the same time, it causes a major loss of self-respect as otherwise honest, decent folk are forced to deceive those whom they love the most. This happened to me on several occasions and I am sure it has also happened to you.
I remember the 1970s detective show, Columbo starring Peter Falk. The theme of each episode is similar. The villain, usually a wealthy and respected businessman, has committed what he thinks is the perfect murder and his confidence in remaining undetected as the perpetrator receives a boost when the shabby-looking and seemingly disorganized Columbo is assigned to the case.
Columbo has this frustrating practice of