Tobackoff ! #1 : The Beginning

When I gave up smoking overnight after more than a quarter of a century of huffing and puffing (without blowing the house down), there was a howl of disbelief in the friends-and-family circles. Clearly, the story needed to be told, with all the trademark Guhan melodrama; and so it was that I created, first a group on Facebook, and later a page.....only to find that the maintenance was getting me down. That's when I thought of transferring it all into a blog.

                                                                          *    *    *

WHY DID I STOP ?

The seeds were sown - indeed, were germinated - in Switzerland in May 2010. A fabulous trip that was, the best  holiday I’ve ever had ! Interlaken,  Jungfrau, Montreux, Chillon,  Zurich, Geneva, Pilatus, Titlis…….a pack and a half of Classic Milds per location : puff, puff, puff, puff !

And then, towards the end of the trip, it happened.

There was this incredible waterfall inside a mountain, Trummelbach Falls……..reached by using every conceivable form of transport: a train to the nearest railhead; a bus to the mountain;  a large square elevator  that lumbered vertically up a very wet rock face for more than 500 metres; and finally, our own legs : a large, bluff male personification of Swiss tourism advised us to proceed with caution for “only 200 steps to the waterfall, ladies and gentlemen !”

Well, 200 steps ? A mere bagatelle, especially for a 45+ smoker past his prime. And so I cantered up the first 50……lumbered up the next 50…….gasped up the third 50……..and staggered blindly up the last 50 – to a late realisation that I might have made a very serious mistake.

An incredible waterfall it was, indeed, my friends: I could see it; I could hear it; I could practically feel it, because it was rushing down in this incredible iridescent roaring cascade, several hundred metres down the mountain into some esoteric underground river…….yes, it was surreal - but you see, I couldn’t enjoy it, because I was too busy feeling other things.

I was feeling a cold hard hand clamp itself around my chest; I was feeling a light, inexorable collar around my throat, making it difficult for me to breathe; I was seeing some fascinating coruscating lights in front of my eyes; I was feeling a warm rush of air in my brain; and, above all, I was feeling that I was dying.

Believe me – delusion or not, THAT is NOT a good feeling. And I realized (no significant brainwork there) that it was because of the 500,000 cigarettes I had put away over the last 25 years. And I said to myself – “Laddie, this isn’t exactly what we signed up for, was it ?”

At that moment, I decided that I was going to quit. I knew that it was probably impossible, but I was naïve: I believed everything I read, and some litterateur of a bygone era had written, and I had read, thus:

“The impossible just takes a little longer !”

The impossible actually took me six months. But that is another tale.