love to smoke.

I think its important to state that right at the beginning so there can be no equivocation about what follows, in case there is any
doubt.

Smoking is one of the greatest pleasures in my life, if not the greatest. It subsumes me, and consumes me. I have been smoking, on
and off, for over twenty years and it has at times reached levels of obsession that even I know are unsustainable. Over and over I
vaguely register that the time has come to quit. But it takes a long time for me to actually follow up on this idea and act: smoking
takes precedence over stopping smoking.

I simply love it too much.

Last thing at night before I go to sleep I am thinking of all the cigarettes to be smoked the next day. The prospect cheers me. On
waking, before showering, before coffee, before eating, I put on my dressing gown, go downstairs, stand outside, and light up the
first cigarette of the morning. It is the harshest of the day, the smoke rough and burning on the throat after eight hours without, and
harsh on an empty stomach too. Then I drink some juice and brew some coffee. I eat cereal while the coffee is brewing and then it is
ready to pour: just in time for the second cigarette of the day, arguably the most enjoyable.

This is more smooth, the coffee on the palate a buffer for the smoke, and is smoked at a more leisurely pace, sitting outside this time
on the step with my cup. These two cigarettes are the most physiologically necessary of the day: to get some nicotine into the
system after the depletion of sleep, to get the equilibrium going.

Conversely the last cigarette of the day is smoked almost regretfully because for the following eight hours or so there will be no
more, and there is a vague anxiety that I wont make it through the night without. It is smoked after everything else is done with: the
evening meal, TV, reading in bed, bathroom ablutions, everything except brushing my teeth. In dressing gown again I stand outside,
as late as possible and shaking with cold, and suck in the days final smoke. Usually I follow with a second cigarette to be sure I
wont be craving one before I go to sleep; sometimes I have a third for the same reason. Only then do I brush my teeth, a small sop
to freshness, and go to bed, anticipating already the first cigarette of the next day in the morning.

This routine cigarettes as soon as I rise, cigarettes last thing before I succumb to sleep means that for all of my waking hours I
reek of cigarette smoke, not only my breath, but my clothing, my hair, and my skin as well. I am a walking, waking, fog of smoke.
No doubt I reek of cigarettes in my sleep too.

The sensations that come from smoking: the first cigarette of the day, there is a definite head rush, a clear hit of a high, a spinning
lightness. The next one is merely a settling of accounts, a restoration of normality and getting comfortable. Later, if there have been
notable gaps between smokes, there is the relaxing cigarette that takes the edge off of absence. Then there are the cigarettes taken
after breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the smoke burning off and replacing the flavors of food in the mouth, cleansing the palate.
Cigarettes with beer, refreshing and frivolous; with wine, studied and reflective; with green tea, delicate and palatable. There are
many sensations that come with smoking, and I love every one.

There are images on the back of the cigarette packs that try to dissuade me from smoking. There is the one of the wrinkled apple
(signifying the wrinkled skin a smoker gets if they dont quit), the one of the drooping cigarette ash (impotence), the one of a bared
gummy mouth (tooth loss), and several more. But none of these have the same effect on me as does the image of Mr Throat.
Mr Throat is the name I give to the man whose photograph appears as a health warning on many of the cigarette packs I smoke
from. His image is accompanied by the message, bold and chilling in its simplicity: Smoking can cause a slow and painful death.
As if to demonstrate the truth of this, there is the picture of Mr Throat, which is truly stomach-turning.

A young(ish) man, age indeterminate, photographed from the bridge of the nose down almost to his clavicle, mouth shut in seeming
determination, has a tumor growing on his throat. And what a tumor. The size of a deflated football, it is the color of raw chopped
liver, and bulges, shapeless, under his chin, covering his Adams apple, spreading each side as far as his ears and down over his
neck. Above the tumor Mr Throat is mostly expressionless, apart from that grimly set mouth, although it is hard to determine his
expression given the absence of eyes from the portrait. He has a florid but wispy mustache, and has made a half-hearted attempt to
nurture a goatee; truth be told Mr Throat does not have a very strong facial hair growth.

Mr Throats appearance is nauseating, shocking, and terrifying to the smoker. No one wants to end up like this. But that is what will
happen to us, the health warning implies, if we continue to smoke: we, too, will look like a monster. Mr Throat is there to tell us, in
earnest, that smoking can cause a slow and painful death, and he delivers that message well.

Nonetheless I continue to smoke, and go on loving it.

Brands are important, and only some will do for me. It has to be either Lucky Strike Silver (Its Toasted!) or Camel Lights, the
ones in the blue pack. These are both a mid-strength (6mg) cigarette. Anything milder has no effect on me, no kick at the back of the
throat, no nicotine rush; anything stronger is nauseating and too strong to inhale deeply. Occasionally I find Gauloises Bleu which
are a nice change. While travelling I sometimes come across the brand I smoked while living in the States, American Spirit Yellow,
a good alternative to Luckies (and supposedly free of additives).

But I still keep coming back to my two favorite brands: Camel and Lucky Strike. I smoke the 6mg level exclusively, feel it is just
right. The only times I smoke other brands is during those brief, periodic episodes of attempting to quit in my twenty-odd-year
smoking career, during which I inevitably bum cigarettes off strangers incessantly so as to feed the habit that my attempt at
quitting has only put on temporary hold. At these times my choice of brand is at the whim of the smoker I bum from: I may end up
with a Major (un-inhalable due to the strength), a Marlboro (unpleasant taste), a Silk Cut (not strong enough), or worse of all, a Kent
Menthol (simply nauseating).

There are many sensations that come with smoking, and I love every one.

Inevitably I get back to buying my own brand again and I joyfully open and smoke from a pack of Camel Lights or Lucky Strike
Silver once more. Back, finally, to my own brand and strength. It is one thing that could be said in my favor: I am nothing if not
loyal.

I never quite get to the stage of being a chain smoker, but do I smoke my cigarettes in couplets, one cigarette followed by another,
before leaving an interval until the next one (which is actually two); which makes me a chain smoker of sorts. The intervals last
anywhere from thirty to sixty minutes depending on what I am doing. Sometimes they last a bit more, on occasions when it is
unavoidable. Frequently, however, they last less. I am going through a lot of cigarettes every day, needing them more often.

So it is I begin to dread going to the cinema to see long movies, one of those occasions when the gap between cigarettes is longer
than strictly bearable. Any movie over ninety minutes is a real strain to get through. I sit through it growing increasingly anxious as
I wait for it to end, for the moment I can smoke again. Then, as soon as the film is over, as soon as the credits roll, I am up and out
of my seat, out the door, and outside, grasping at a cigarette and smoking. I often leave whatever cinema-going companion I am
with to come find me. It occurs to me that roughly speaking I now need a cigarette every thirty minutes, minimum, or I grow
agitated.
I meet an American girl at a busy bar. She is nice. We have a lot in common. We click. She says, See you in a bit, and goes to the
bathroom.

I go for a smoke, resolved to talk to her on my return. When I come back, she is standing by the bar waiting to order and I go join
her.

When I speak, leaning in close so she can hear me over the bar noise, she visibly recoils.

Do you smoke? she asks, startled, as if she has never heard of such behavior in an adult: she has caught my smoky breath, and ends
the conversation.

The encounter has led nowhere; she has no interest in hanging out with a smoker. Needless to say I dont bother asking for her
number.

It is imperative never to run out, never to be in a position where I have no cigarettes on me or in the house. To this end I always
make sure I have two packs about me at all times. One pack is the previous days leftovers: the final cigarettes remaining from a
pack of twenty begun the preceding day which I use to begin the days smoking, and rapidly finish. Then I open a fresh pack which
I bought the previous day and start that. Thus for a brief period I have only one pack on me; the imperative takes over now and I
make sure as soon as possible to buy pack two. Buying this second pack gives me a sense of security. I continue to smoke pack one,
getting through perhaps sixteen or seventeen (I have already consumed two or three from the previous days pack two). I have thus
two or three left over for the following morning, plus the fresh unopened second pack to start once I have got through them.

The system ensures I always intake a minimum of twenty cigarettes a day; but also means that if, for example, I am out late, or get
up very early, that pack two can be opened earlier and begun ahead of schedule, though still leaving some aside for morning
consumption. On these days consumption goes up to twenty-five or thirty cigarettes, and always, always, the imperative to have two
packs on me is fulfilled and justified. It means, in practice, that every day I need to monitor consumption levels closely, stop
somewhere and make a purchase, and thus reassure myself that stocks are good and I do indeed have enough, because the thought of
running out fills me with dread. I obsessively stroke pack two unopened in my pocket to calm myself at these moments of anxiety.

I cant help wondering, as Im handed a pack in the newsagent and am unable to avoid seeing the image on the health warning: Who
is Mr Throat really? Does he have his own story, biography, experience, somewhere? In the past, or even now, living or in the
memories of those living? How did he go from being an individual, a man, to being an image, dehumanized, on a pack of cigarettes,
used as a health warning, merely a function? Did he consent to that photograph being taken and distributed or was it taken as part of
some health screening program, or test, and then used at other times, in other contexts, without his knowledge? Is he actually alive
in that photograph, or is this an image of a corpse? Is Mr Throat alive today?

These are the thoughts that go through my mind every time I am unlucky enough to see the nauseating image of Mr Throat. Then I
try and forget him again.

I obsessively stroke pack two unopened in my pocket to calm myself at these moments of anxiety.

I go to a country wedding, pocketing two packs of cigarettes as usual. I idly wonder, as I get dressed and prepare to board the hired
coach that will take me to the wedding venue, would three packs be better; but in my wedding outfit I dont have enough spare
pockets to carry more than two, so it will have to suffice.
The reception is held out in a remote rustic estate in the countryside; there are no shops nearby, nor vending machines within. My
two packs will have to get me through the night. It is a long night and inevitably I run out. What follows is an orgy of begging for
cigarettes fueled by increasing panic as I realize I will be on this estate, out, awake, away from any source of buying cigarettes, for
several more hours and I will, in no way possible, make it through this without smoking.

Other smokers have now realized the same thing: the coaches back to town wont arrive until dawn. There is now a finite and
unrenewable quantity of cigarettes available to smokers on the estate and they are being rapidly consumed. Rationing begins, and it
becomes harder and harder to bum a smoke. More and more smokers refuse me, waving their packs at me and demonstrating they
only have two or three forlorn cigarettes left to get them through the rest of the night. I begin to feel a sense of utter fear as the
anticipation of withdrawal symptoms kicks in.

Finally dawn breaks over the misty fields of the estate and I am able to catch the coach and return to the hotel in the regional town
where I am staying. There the hotel bar is open for breakfast, and selling cigarettes also; sweet oblivion overcomes me as I open my
own pack at last and can smoke my own cigarettes, in control of my nicotine intake once again.

There have been there actually continue to be intermittent attempts to quit for good even as my career as a smoker progresses. In
the course of the two-plus decades of being a smoker, these attempts have resulted in me quitting for periods ranging from a few
hours to a few years. Always they have ended in the same way: me bumming cigarettes off strangers to satisfy cravings, on the
streets or outside pub entrances:

Excuse me, spare a cigarette?