Did you know that you can tell a smoker just by looking at a person, without even smelling the smoke on him or her? It’s easy – look for the telltale signs: the pasty pallor, the unhealthy look of the skin on the face, the constant shifting of the eyes, the constant look of tension and worry.

I have never seen a relaxed smoker.

The myth of “smoking relaxes you” is just that – a myth. What it really does is chemically control you. And every cigarette you smoke reduces the “calming” effect on you a notch, while increasing the dependency several notches.

And the effect it has on you psychologically is probably the worst of them all – when you find yourself lighting up at the dinner table, knowing how disgusted everyone will be, or when you spray yourself with perfume to get rid of the smell, or when you see your child looking at you accusingly with that “do you know what you are doing to *me*?” look, that strangled look on the face of your loved one as you kiss or just hold each other…

All this takes its toll on your mind, as you begin to accept all it, because you are a slave to that 10 cm long roll of paper, with burning embers on one side, and a complete fool on the other.

A fool, because you seriously believe that you can stop whenever you want to.

It’s been four years today since I stopped smoking.

And I still feel the urge every now and then, though I have valiently held out and not touched a coffin nail since 10pm on that fateful day in June of 2001.

How bad can it be?

Let me tell you:

Imagine you are in a pool of water, and someone pushes you under. You struggle to get back to the air, you feel your lungs bursting, your mind screaming.

Just one gasp of air – that’s all you want.

And that’s what I feel like when the urge to smoke hits me, even today. And I live in a world where people indiscriminately light up all around me. Every time, it is like I am being pushed underwater again, and the struggle starts again. I may seem unaffected on the outside. I may even tell you that your smoking doesn’t bother me, but I am lying – I am dying inside.

Every smoker knows that he or she is possibly smoking that bullet that has his or her name on it. This could be the one – the one that triggers off the first cancerous cell mutation in your lungs.

But did you know that as a “reformed” smoker, I will continue to be at risk to the health hazards of smoking even years after I stopped, possibly for the rest of my life?

It needn’t be my lighting up a cigarette – it could be the secondary smoke I inhale from your cigarette as you stand near me. That final straw, the intake of a few milligrams of carcinogens that will send my body irreversibly over the edge to its doom.

Let this be a lesson to all those who think that they can start and stop smoking when they feel like it. You may be able to stop some day (it took me decades), but you will always be a smoker – even if you don’t smoke again for the rest of your life.

The damage to your body is only half the story.

The damage to your mind is the real bad news.

Do yourself a favour – stop. And the best way to stop smoking is to not even start.

But if you *have* to smoke and kill yourself, please don’t take me with you.