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I had just finished my twentieth year. In those days, starting to smoke was a
`macho' thing to do. It was like adult franchise, when one is considered old
enough to vote in the country's election. It was like a rite of passage, when
one moved on from being a boy to being a man, an adult. Friendship in those days
insisted on being able to do similar things together. So, if one had the bad
luck of being among smokers, picking up the habit was the most natural thing to
do.
It was a time when tobacco companies were systematically hushing up the real
details of the hazards that came with smoking. The first real indication that
things were not that rosy came up when the `star' of a cigarette advertisement,
one that had a lovely slogan about smoking being a truly glamorous and manly
thing to do, died of lung cancer. Pretty soon, stories of others who died of
respiratory ailments after years of smoking became common news. Even non-smoking
tobacco company employees developed lung cancer and other complications. It
would be another fifty years before tobacco companies admitted that tobacco
plants were genetically modified to create faster addiction to nicotine among
new smokers.By the time all these came into the public domain, I had been
smoking for more than twenty years. The addiction was so entrenched that I never
mentally accepted that I had an addiction. My best friends' wife died of lung
cancer despite never having smoked a cigarette all her life. Only much later did
we realise that sleeping all those years next to him was the real cause of her
cancer. We had heard of secondary smoke. He smoked everywhere in the house. But
worse still was that his breath was poisonous for her, even when he wasn't
smoking, because he was a chain smoker.
Another friend of mine, although not a chain smoker, was a heavy smoker. Famous
for his deep guttural smoker's cough, over the years he steadily lost his
physical capabilities. Being close friends, he used to confide in us that his
sexual ability was on the decline. He had very bad emphysema and would be
gasping for breath after climbing just a single flight of stairs.
Several times, I started on nicotine replacement therapies. But it was not
helpful, because in my opinion it did not address my addiction. It only replaced
the source of nicotine that my body yearned for. It was only a matter of time
before I started to smoke again. I now realise that I should have continued with
counselling sessions after the nicotine therapy.
Another friend of mine, also a smoker, had a heart attack. Being close to me and
not having a big family, I became a constant companion. I drove him to all his
hospital visits over the next few months. The doctors convinced him, with
detailed x-rays and other materials, that the real cause of his heart disease
was the smoking habit. Having been hospitalized for more than a month after the
heart attack, the confinement in hospital meant that he naturally stopped
smoking. I realised that if I did not stop now, I would only be encouraging him
to start smoking again.
I decided to totally removed cigarettes from life. I got rid of all the
ash-trays in my house and the office. I did not throw away the cigarettes. The
first one week can best be described as totally terrible. My moods fluctuated
from one extreme to the other. Every time that I very badly wanted a cigarette,
I would hold a cigarette in my hand and stare at in closely. I would build up
the hatred that I had for it, for having taken over my life so insidiously. I
would then crush in between my fingers, grind in up in my palm and throw it into
the rubbish bin!
One day, it struck me out of the blue. I realised that smokers love cigarettes
because they fed their nicotine addiction. Nobody loves the smoke. In fact, who
would want to fill their chest with suffocating smoke? We never see a smoker
burn stuff just to inhale the smoke. It is the nicotine in smoke that they are
really after. I discussed this with my friend who is a psychologist. He was very
interested in my concept.
He said he would look into the possibility of coming with a psycho-therapy
program which planted a hatred for cigarettes in the smoker's mind. But he
warned me that it might not work because people might object to it as an
invasion of privacy. Who knows? I hope he is not right. Anyway, I am happy. My
life is now cigarette free. My house, office and clothes no longer of have a
burnt smell.
One big change I have found was that food tasted better. Only then did I realise
that the smoke that I had inhaled all my life was at a very high temperature. It
was burning my taste buds. In fact I also realised that my sense of smell was
never better. Even the smell sensors in my nose were affected by the hot smoke
that I was inhaling.
Believe me when I say this as a previously heavy smoker, the only good that
comes out of smoking is that it makes tobacco companies richer, and you poorer
both financially as well as physically. |
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Answer the following questions using complete
sentences |
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1. |
From paragraph 1, what is
adult franchise ? |
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2. |
(a) From paragraph 2, what
happened to the model in the cigarette advertisement ?
(b) How do you think
non-smokers in tobacco companies developed lung cancer ? |
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3. |
(a) From paragraph 3, what would have
caused the friend's wife's lung cancer ?
(b) From paragraph 3, mention the
two advantages of using mass media. |
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4. |
(a) From paragraph 5, in two
sentences, explain why you think the nicotine replacement therapy failed
?
(b) How did hospitalization
helps the friend to stop smoking ? |
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5. |
" ... it makes you poorer
both financially as well as physically. "
Based on this statement, how would you describe the detrimental
characteristic of cigarettes ?
Characteristic: Reason: |
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6. |
Based on the passage, write a
summary of :
• The circumstances that led
to the smoking habit of the writer.
• The different ways in which
families suffer because of the smoking habit. |
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| Answers |
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1. |
It is at the age when we can vote in national elections. |
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2. |
(a) He died of lung cancer.
(b) Handling tobacco leaves
every day would have led to the harmful chemicals in tobacco entering
their system. |
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3. |
(a) The secondary smoke from
her husband and his breath must have caused her affliction.
(b)
(i) His sexual ability
declined.
(ii) He developed bad
emphysema. |
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4. |
(a) Addiction to nicotine was
removed because the nicotine was still made available from another
source. Besides, the writer failed to continue with the counselling
sessions.
(b) Smoking is strictly
prohibited in all hospitals and their grounds. Besides, he must have
been pretty weak after the attack. By the time he was discharged, he was
already not smoking for a whole month. Thus, he would already be used to
being without cigarettes Of course, there was also the fear of dying. |
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5. |
Characteristic: Cigarettes
create an addiction which drains both health and finances.
Reason: On an average a pack
of cigarette is about RM15. Smokers usually smoke a pack a day. That
works out to more than RM5,000 a year. Twenty years of smoking at that
rate would be RM100,000, the cost of a small house. Hence it is
definitely a drain on one's finances. Besides the addiction to the
chemicals in tobacco, the health of lungs, heat and other parts of the
body is also adversely affected. This is the drain on health, increasing
medical expenditures in tandem.
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6. |
The source of the writer's smoking habit was peer pressure. It was a
time when there was social pressure to do similar things to identify
with groups. His friends were smokers. So, to become their friend he too
had to become one. It was a time without awareness of the hazards of
smoking. Besides, smoking was advertised as a socially fashionable and
manly thing to do. Happily, today the advertisement of cigarettes and
other tobacco products are totally banned. There are two ways that the
smoking habit affects families. First, the health of the smoker and his
is adversely affected. Secondly, being an expensive habit that raises
medical expenses in the long run is creates a strain on family finances. |
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