Money And Cigarettes

Not wishing to bore everyone with yet another shot of the gas works in the street, I thought I’d commemorate an anniversary. Facebook has reminded me that it is now 10 years to the day since I last smoked a cigarette. As I don’t have a photo of that event, this one of me with fag in hand from the late ‘90s will have to suffice for illustrative purposes.
I had smoked since my late teens, though not heavily, and had witnessed the changes at work from being able to smoke at my desk at any time, then only outside customer hours, then only in a specific room at lunchtime and finally not at all in the building. None of these changes was enough to make me think of giving up. I did consider it briefly when smoking was banned in pubs, but soon got used to joining the little groups clustered around the door.
July 12th 2013 found me working that day at St James’ Park in Newcastle. I was self employed by now and so could smoke whenever I wanted to when not actually delivering a training session. That day was particularly fraught with machines not being delivered on time, trainees not turning up or being sent elsewhere during a session and just a general sense of things not going right. I spent half the day outside on the phone, trying to get things sorted. And - as you did in those days - every phone call was accompanied by a ciggie. I was definitely well into my second packet of the day by the time I set off home.
Crossing the river near Hexham I reached for fags and lighter, but suddenly decided I didn’t want to smoke anymore and instead of lighting up, I threw them out of the car window into the river below.
And I’ve not had one since. Mrs C tells me the first few weeks were hell for everyone around me as I went through cold turkey and there have been many occasions when I have been tempted to have “just the one.” Thankfully these occasions get less and less as the years go by as I know that if I did have one, I’d almost certainly start again, undoing all the good work and making a mockery of all the efforts in the gym over the past few years.
And if the health benefits aren’t enough, there is the monetary aspect. About £7 a packet when I quit, I believe it’s nearer £15 now. Take my average consumption of one pack a day at an average price of £10 per packet, and the cost over the last ten years would have been £36,500!
Sadly, that money isn’t sitting stashed away in a savings account as I’d discovered the pain and pleasure of buying and selling guitars by then. With hindsight, it might have been cheaper to carry on smoking haha!