Anne's Choice, Part 6

ANNE'S CHOICE
by Richad
 
Chapter 6
 
 
As before, Anne made a plan.  She had read advice in a "quit smoking" guide
on the internet that the best method was to take a break from her usual
routine and try to quit cold turkey, and so she and Martin arranged to take
time off work and booked themselves a last-minute activity holiday in a beach
resort on a Caribbean island.  They arrived at their hotel late in the
evening and, after unpacking, they went down to the bar where Anne sat and
finished the cigarettes in her pack, smoking each one down to the stub.
 
When there was only one left, she excused herself to Martin and walked
outside to the patio.  A warm breeze was blowing in from the sea.  She sat
down alone at a table under a palm tree and lit her last cigarette, inhaling
less deeply than usual so that it would take longer to smoke.  She tried to
remember what it was like not to be a smoker but, apart from the brief
interlude at university, her memories were too far back in her youth to
afford much of a clue.  As a small child she had hated her father's smoking
and nagged him persistently that it was bad for him.  All of that changed one
day in her early teens when her friend Katie invited her into a shed at the
bottom of the garden where, to Anne's surprise, Katie produced a pack of
Benson & Hedges, and the two girls practised smoking to impress the boys at a
party that night.  She remembered, too, the day when she bought her own pack
for the first time, in a corner shop whose owner took a relaxed attitude to
the age of his customers.  As she unwrapped the pack and took a cigarette out
of it, she had quietly murmured under her breath the words "I smoke", just to
see how it sounded.  It sounds good, she had thought to herself.
 
It still sounds good, Anne reflected wistfully, as she returned her attention
to the cigarette which she was now holding and of which, despite her efforts,
very little remained.  She continued to take small drags until the last of
the tobacco burned away and it went out.  She dropped the lipstick-stained
filter on the ground, crushed it symbolically with her heel, and stood up to
rejoin Martin in the bar.
 
During the next two weeks they passed the time surfing, windsurfing,
paragliding, and participating in every other available activity, in order to
try to occupy Anne's attention.  In the evenings they dined in non-smoking
restaurants and Anne drank too much wine as an inadequate substitute for the
nicotine which she craved.  For the first week she suffered dreadful
withdrawal symptoms: headaches, chest pains, dizzy spells and panic attacks.
Despite their busy sport schedule, she seldom lasted more than ten minutes
without longing for a cigarette.  Martin did what he could to help her,
tolerating her foul moods and fits of temper, calming her down when she
panicked, drying her tears when she cried.  It was not a very relaxing
fortnight for either of them, but by the end of the holiday Anne's symptoms
were much less acute and she had succeeded in resisting all temptations to
smoke.  As she walked quickly past the duty-free cigarettes at the airport
without making any purchase, she smiled proudly at Martin, although inwardly
she suspected that the worst was yet to come.
 
And so it proved.  By nature, Anne was a very strong-willed woman and, having
made the decision to give up smoking, she was determined to prove to herself
that she could see it through.  But as she had feared, once back at work and
into her normal routine, her cravings got worse, not better.  When she woke
in the morning she would reach automatically for the pack on her bedside
table before remembering with dismay that it was no longer there.  Breakfast
without a cigarette left her unprepared to start the day.  In the office she
moved to sit at a desk away from the smoking area but still found herself
thinking about cigarettes a hundred times a day.  She stopped drinking coffee
because the taste of espresso without tobacco made her feel even more
miserable.  In the evenings she stayed at home rather than go out to smoky
bars and parties.  She and Martin made an effort to spend more time with
Martin's friends (none of whom smoked) than with Anne's female friends (most
of whom did smoke).  This removed a source of temptation but did nothing for
Anne's social pleasure.  There were many times when she found herself on the
brink of failure.  On one occasion, after a particularly difficult day at
work, she got as far as joining the queue at the cigarette counter in the
supermarket, before willing herself to walk away without making a purchase.
 
Eventually, Anne did allow herself the pleasure of an evening out with her
own friends.  They were sympathetic to her predicament and did their best not
to smoke as much in her presence as they would normally have done.  Even so,
Anne felt a pang of envy each time she watched the girls light up.   She
could not help noticing the expressions of satisfaction and pleasure on their
faces as they inhaled during the animated conversation.  Again, though, she
held firm and did not dare even to ask for a drag of someone else's
cigarette.  They're just feeding an addiction, she told herself: they're not
really enjoying it.  But she didn't entirely believe this.  As she made her
way home at the end of the evening she tried to feel triumphant at having
stayed smoke-free, but merely felt dejected and wondered whether she had
spoiled the evening for the others.
 
Weeks and then months passed, although to Anne it seemed like years.  And
slowly - very slowly - but surely, she began to recognise the unmistakeable
evidence that there were benefits to quitting smoking.  Her morning cough had
almost disappeared and when she woke up her chest no longer felt heavy and
tight.  She could laugh without her laugh turning into another cough.  She
realised that she had been fooling herself to believe that smoking had not
been affecting her in other ways.  For the first time in years she was able
to walk up stairs without losing her breath.  She could run for more than a
few yards without her heart rate rising to an alarming level.  Her stamina at
the dance class improved and she began to think about enrolling for more
advanced sessions.  She became aware, with hindsight, that she had previously
been spending much of her life breathless without appreciating it.
Everything she ate tasted better.  She calculated that cigarettes had been
costing her, on average, around £250 every month, and decided to use the
money she was saving to take out a loan on a new car, with leather upholstery
which smelt clean and fresh.  Although she still had the urge to smoke many
times a day, she now had some real justification for telling herself that she
should not give in.
 
The Christmas holiday season came and went, and Anne took part in the usual
social whirl without succumbing to frequent temptation.  Tentatively, she
began to describe herself as an ex-smoker, and dared to contemplate a future
life without cigarettes.
 
Martin, of course, was absolutely delighted by Anne's success.  He had not
honestly expected her to stay quit for long, and she had surpassed all his
wildest hopes.  He, too, was looking to the future: one in which he imagined
Anne playing a central role.  Everything was going very well indeed.

Previous part | Next part