Buffalo: Diary of a (non) smoker

Fifteen years and 75, 600 (15x7, x4, x12, x15) cigarettes later, and I've decided enough is - cough, hack - enough.

As much as my gold-and-white-adorned friends have supported me through the ages, the little blighters are starting to blight me in more ways than one.

The lines around my mouth are deepening; in fact, I could probably stick mini matchsticks in them and they would hold fast.

If that's not bad enough, my dreams regularly transform into nightmares where I see my face futuristically merge with Dot Cotton's - and the evil doctor Frankenstein laughs into infinity. Throaty-chested witches cackle all around me; deep, wheezy laughs. And then I morph into a big clumsy water buffalo, helplessly running after the cute looking lions that, in turn, run away from big smelly me as fast as their glamourous paws will carry them.

So for sanity reasons, I've decided to stop smoking for good. But that's not to say I haven't tried to quit before. Oh no. You name a quack method and I've been there. You want the stop-smoking pill Zyban? I've got some in my handbag from two years ago. You want nicotine patches? Help yourself - I have every shape and size lurking around in the house somewhere; I think they're hiding the kitchen, collecting dust in the drawer for light bulbs and Sellotape. Chewing gum? If you don't mind chewing what tastes like tin foil, then please be my guest.

But the point is that my no-smoking journey has now reached its last chance saloon: that is, the murky world of the NHS and its six-week intensive stop-smoking group therapy classes.

WEEK 1

My flatmate and I furtively chug on a couple of cigarettes before the start of the session.

I inhale more deeply than usual. In the last few days I have smoked almost double my normal amount.

The no-smoking course is being held in the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital - I am terrified of hospitals; the hazy bleached smell of illness. The 'Quit for Good' seminar is held on the fifth floor and the lifts are packed with frail people in wheelchairs, some with tubes strapped to their faces. Terror strikes me with full force.

My flatmate looks fearful. "What are they going to do to us, do you think? They might search us for cigarettes and make us put them in the bin, she says seriously.

On the fifth floor, the class is small; it's just my flatmate and a 55-year-old man, who I later find out writes the music for Bad Girls. He's certainly dressed for the occasion, adorned in a cravat and a blazer. He looks more terrified than me.

We sit down opposite the two addiction counsellors, a man and a woman. They don't look like they've been privy to any addictions in their lifetime. (I want wisdom from a dab hand; someone who has quit smoking 50 fags a day and, to really push it, has also stamped on the head of a debilitating all-consuming smack habit. Someone who makes it look like a walk in the park.)

A sweet-looking woman in a woolly jumper beams and congratulates us on the great decision we've made to quit smoking. What? Hang on a minute? Have I quit? Did I say I've quit? I start to squirm in my chair.

She passes around some papers, all similar in their message: 'Congratulations, you've made the single most important decision of your life.' The composer gentleman shifts in his seat, nervously twisting his cravat.

"Don't worry, you have a week to prepare to quit, and in that time, we want you to think about things that you might be able to do once you get a craving to smoke, says the counsellor. Next she brings out a carbon monoxide tester. I score 47, which makes me incredibly polluted. To give you a better picture, my fellow students score 12 and 16, respectively. I'm already feeling better about being here. I have to be here. I have a similar carbon monoxide count to the Chiswick flyover.

"Next week, once you've given up, your carbon monoxide count should be down to 1 or 2. It can be a big motivation. You'll visibly see how much cleaner your body is.

The man and woman ask us why we started smoking and why we want to stop. They remind us that giving up smoking is a powerful experience.

"One of the main reasons quitting smoking is such a challenging experience is because cigarettes help you to bury emotions - and once you stop, you have to find other ways to deal with buried feelings. A truer way that, ultimately, is better for you, she says.

"You'll feel calmer and less stressed. You'll have more energy. We see people do it all the time - ’ they look great, and feel relieved to be free’ - you can do it too.

We are each dispensed with our choice of Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) - patches, lozenges or inhalators - and packed away into the cold night.

Did I enjoy it? Kind of.

Did it all make sense? Yes.

Will I be able to quit smoking? The honest answer is - I don't know.

WEEK 2

It's been easier than I imagined. But thinking back to my numerous failed stop smoking attempts, it's always easier in the beginning.

"Everyone has their own stop smoking path, says the counsellor. "Some people find the first three days hardest, but for others it comes later. That's me.

The initial euphoria of quitting is nice. That gay feeling of being the Timotei girl with clean shiny hair and equally clean shiny breath sustains me every time - in the beginning.

I haven't smoked for three days and I already feel a little lighter; in the sense that I don't have to creep around at the bus stop, arms flailing, trying to stop my smoke from blowing in the faces of perfectly-groomed career women and pure-looking babies; I don't have to make myself invisible; I don't have to wish that I would be swallowed up by the cracks in the pavement like some kind of malignant pariah. That's why it's no fun to smoke anymore. Nobody likes it. Nobody likes me.

Best of all, next time I walk into Chelsea and Westminster Hospital I don't have to look at the floor, consumed by a not-entirely-irrational terror that in a few years time it will be me with the tubes strapped to my face, expelling short, pained half-breaths - wishing I'd kicked the little nicotine demon in the face all those years back.

"If I only I could turn back the clock, the counsellor says. "If only I'd had a pound for the many times I've heard that. And how silly would you feel then? she adds, only half in jest.

I've been wearing 21mg nicotine patches for a week and I haven't smoked a cigarette. My comrades have slipped a little in the last week. The cravat-wearing gentleman says he caved in when he was working. "I couldn't write without them, and I had to write. Next week, he promises, "next week.

My housemate fared better, barely smoking for the week, apart from a night out. Her carbon monoxide reading is hovering around the 12 mark. She can't wear patches due to an allergy. I couldn't have done it without them.

Today my carbon monoxide count is 1. The counsellor beams at me, and I beam back. My cheeks are rosier too. The blood is beginning to circulate just beneath my skin, just like it always should've done, in the days before Philip Morris.

I can do this, I think. Maybe I can do this.

WEEK 3

Today I feel like death. It's been ten days without a cigarette and I feel like I have something akin to blood poisoning - a weak, tremulous, tugging feeling in my veins. I am shaking. The counsellor's words ring in my ears. "Watch what it does to you. Take it in - think about how powerfully nicotine is affecting your body. Do you want to put something in your body that has the capacity to make you feel so wretched?

I am competitive by nature. I'm thinking of it as a battle in the ring - me versus nicotine.

I want to win. I have to win. But it doesn't stop the tears from streaming down my face, my neck, into my nicotine patch.

WEEK 4

I've decided to take up prettying my nails and drinking water non-stop. Oh, and barking at people who have the audacity to - wait for it - brush past me in the street.

Bad news. No show at the 'Quit for Good' class from my flat mate today because she's got too much work on. So it's just Mr Cravat and me. It dawns on me how fragile this giving up smoking pursuit is - just looking at the empty chair where my flatmate should rightfully sit makes me feel down, makes me want to smoke.

The counsellor is right: giving up smoking is a delicate emotional journey and it's very easy to fall off.

"How are you? I ask Mr Cravat.
"I'm terrible, he says.
"Because you haven't smoked?
"No, I have smoked... and I still feel terrible.

My heart sinks again. Why is no one else giving up? The counsellor asks us how things are going. I almost feel guilty when I say that I haven't smoked for 11 days - not even one. Mr Cravat looks at me curiously.

"I've smoked one day on and one day off in the last week, he says.

No wonder he feels terrible. If there's one thing I have learned from my many stop smoking attempts - it's that there's no such thing as just one. Otherwise I feel like I am trapped in a 'win-fail' cycle.

That's the thing with smoking - you always feel like a failure. In the last two weeks, I have really started to think about things.

Particularly about the fact that voluntarily choosing to poison myself can't make me feel good, or build respect for myself, deep down. My thinking has never been so crystal clear - but I am also wise enough to know that the wagon's edge is close. And it will be, for a long time yet.

Mr Cravat says he was an alcoholic 20 years ago. Smoking is the last vestige of his addictive personality and letting go means finding a new identity. It's complicated, this smoking business.

He says he has been to AA meetings, Alan Carr group therapy, hypnotherapy and psychotherapy. Part of me wonders whether his real addiction might just be... therapy.

The counsellor clairvoyantly senses my waning spirit and attempts to pick me up.

"As you carry on quitting smoking, you'll notice things you've never seen before. Because you've smoked since you were a child, you can't remember life without cigarettes. Trust me.

I still feel low. Like no one is taking it seriously - so what's the point? Cigarettes enter my consciousness with a harder force that I've noted in the past fortnight. Pwhack.

Later as I get into bed I check the mirror. They can't really be mine? I've always had thin, pale lips and I've been kind of ok with them. I move my hand to my face, to touch them, just to check. It's real. I have big red, lovely lips.

TBC...