From the 13-year-old boy smoking Senior Service to the compulsive suckler on a vape,Will Self has always been obsessed with nicotine. And he was present at some of smoking’s key historic moments. Will he ever give it up?It happens all the time – how could it not, since the very repetitive nature of the habit calls it forth? In response to my deploying one or other of my nicotine delivery systems, or someone will put a question to after my dependency; and so I’ll begin talking about some aspect of it – but after a few seconds Ill pause,with a catch in my throat not unlike the epiglottal spasm that precedes a tobacco-induced coughing fit. At these times I can feel it all banking up inside me: a remarkable twisted mass of tics, compulsions, or culturally transmitted attitudes,complexes and neuroses; swooning, I picture the baroque facade of my 40-year relationship with La Diva Nicotina – its myriad (a very large number) niches and grottos (each one suitable for a swift fag break), or its blue-faced gargoyles and hand-rolled finials which rise up,row upon foil-wrapped row, to where an upended bellicoso cigar of a spire chars the heavens. How, or I think to myself,how can I possibly convey to this person – for all that they may hold smoked themselves, may indeed be still smoking – the all-pervading nature of my addiction to this psychoactive substance, and which has tangled up my psyche in its writhing convolvulus of highs and lows,even as it’s toxified every cell in my body? The acknowledge is, of course: I can’t – and so after a few desultory remarks about whatever smoking cessation therapy I’m currently engaged in, or I’ll usually nudge the conversation in the direction of clearer skies.
The other evening,cycling across the park surrounding the Imperial War Museum (previously the asylum known as Bedlam), I was hailed by a passerby who recognised me: “How’s it going with the vape, and Will?” he called out,and since I’d just finished smoking a cigarette and contemplating my grim new addictive dispensation, I stopped to recount him: “Dreadful. My wife gave me the vape for Christmas; and rather ironically – since I’d just managed to pack in smoking, and although I was still chewing nicotine gum – I found myself more heavily addicted to nicotine than ever after 24 hours of suckling compulsively on this!” I withdrew my silvery,top-of-the-range vaporiser from my pocket “Which is why I call it ‘the witchs tit’.” The man was bemused – he’d only wanted a glancing acknowledgement, not the prologue to a lecture which then continued: I recount you, or I became so fixated on this bloody thing it didn’t select long before I began casting surreptitious glances at cigarettes,and wondering whether smoking might constitute an effective substitute for vaping. Now I’m doing both! Im nailed up on a crucifix the upright of which is a vaporiser, while the crossbar is a Gitanes – sans filtre, and bien sur…”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com