Cigarette Addiction

We couple of friends were talking to each other while sitting in the memorial park of my university. It was a breezy full moon night and we were enjoying the pleasant weather, suddenly a cloud of cigarette smoke tarnished the wonderful ambiance. One of my friends had silently started to smoke, we had no issues with him smoking cigarette but it had unnecessarily drawn our attention. Suddenly one friend asked him, dude tell us how you started smoking (appears to be one of the favorite and most obvious questions asked to smokers).

He said, in his final year of engineering, he and two close friends, one day decided to smoke. The only reason to do this was, they wanted to try as many things they could before their student life came to an end. As they just wanted to try smoking, they decided they will quit after attending the last day at college.

They started with smoking one cigarette in two days, soon smoked one each day and within a month it shot to more than 3 a day and these innocent guys failed to realize the rate at which they were smoking. They stopped spending money on stupid things, occasionally even on food.

Despite of spending all their time together at college, every evening they met at a pan shop, bought bunch of cigarettes, filled some gas in the only bike they had and went to a hill top (all three on one bike). Peacefully they smoked cigarettes and invented some new smoker's games. One of the games was the "Random walk" (one of the concepts from Probability and Random Processes which they could never follow); looser of the game was supposed to sponsor one cigarette to rest two. Happily the days passed and by now they puffed about 5-6 cigarettes a day.

With increase in number of cigarettes, the well kept secret was open to everyone who knew them, they just smoked anywhere and anytime they felt doing so and were spotted by many people, it included being spotted by Head of Department himself. Individually they were called to HOD's cabin and were blamed of spoiling the culture and discipline of the department. As being ideal students, they ignored his warnings, later they paid a heavy price for this by being honored with poor grades in midterm exams.

Seasons came and went, final exams approached, so approached the vivas and journal submissions, days were limited in number and time was scarce, tension grew and so increased the revenue of the pan waala. Number of cigarettes per day crossed 12 and many time they ran out of there cigarette stock late at night around 2:00 - 3:00am. The urge to smoke became so prominent that it made them scavengers; they scanned every inch of their locality to find cigarettes so late in night. They had almost forgotten about their pledge about quitting cigarettes.

Good days are ephemeral, they end before one realizes. Soon the last day approached and that reminded them about their promise they made to each other. On this final day of smoking, they smoked cigarette as if they won't smoke ever in life, dude they wanted to keep their promises. Early morning they went to their respective rooms and slept till late evening. Again in the evening they met and decided to buy cigarette, but one guy (this friend of mine) said, "dude, I have quit smoking", rest two looked at his face, then to each other's face, bought some cigarettes and said "Dude, smoke the last cigarette in the name of you quitting it". This guy still regrets the day, he had made his mind but the cigarette he smoked to celebrate the decision never allowed him to stop, and neither his friends stopped.

Tears almost rolled from his eyes, it was evident how much he was missing good old days. He said, they all are still good friends and find some time out of there busy schedule to speak to each other. Everyone is doing well and continues to smoke; time has not weakened the bonding between them but has changed their cigarette brands. We all busted in laugh and he kept smoking. By now his cigarette had almost burned till the bud and he smoked the golden puff.

One of the guys amongst us asked him, dude to what extent are you addicted, are you psychologically addicted or physically. He proudly said, "Dude, I am not addicted yet and I'll quit once I feel I am getting addicted". Same guy asked, when do you generally feel like smoking? He said, when I am tensed, feeling sleepy, not feeling sleepy, feeling lonely, feel nostalgic, and similar situations. Same guy said, boss this is what addiction is, are you sure you are not yet addicted?

He didn't speak a word, turned back and walked into the lab to continue working on his project. I think we made him realize what he has been running away from, soon we all returned back to our work too. Couple of hours passed, the smoker dude quietly walked out again, I followed him and was not shocked to find him smoking again. He saw me and said, Jhajee, I think I am addicted and will quit smoking soon but I know it will be a gradual process, I said yaa, you should. His voice grew heavy and he kept looking somewhere. I wish he quits soon, we will get another reason to party.

Quit smoking before its too late : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB5HN9uO3Bk&NR=1