My Smoking Life

'Bout time I wrote something sensible, instead of this dress and hair obsessing I've been doing of late. And they say blondes are dumb. I'm a brunette now!

Yes, today is the day I made a committment to give up the evil weed. A half a lifetime addiction, which never should have started. I mean, what person in their right mind does something that they know can lead to life-threatening illness, and death. Aside from Mossy's paramour, Pete 'The White Flava Flav - Crackhead' Doherty. Yeah me, that's who.

I smoked my first cigarette aged 10 in the 'bogs' at primary school. Me and my friends were 'grassed' up by some big mout' girl, and my teacher (the PE teacher no less) stood us in front of class and gave us the Alex Ferguson hairdryer treatment (stay with me my US cousins). I had to intercept the letter he sent home to my mum, as beatings were still in full effect back then, and I wasn't trying to feel the tennis racket, badminton racket, or a shoe in my head.After that, I was vehemently anti-smoking for a few years.

What was it that made me start to smoke, and continue until now?

I was around 17 when I started going to clubs regularly and people were always offering me 'erbs. I had never tried it - but thought 'lightbulb moment', 'I know I'll try a cigarette, and if I like that, I'll try the weed'. Not one of my better ideas. I was moving into the hip-hop scene at that time. And even though I'd been clubbing for a couple of years. Hip-hop was a more intimidating scene. Everyone, seemed so confident and acted like they belonged. I was new to it, and I guess I just wanted to fit in. A guy I started seeing was a dancer and actor, he smoked. He was friends with Rodney P of the London Posse, we all hung together, and went to parties. They all smoked weed. I puffed on it like I knew what I was doing. Of course the choking gave me away.

It wasn't a massive surprise that I started smoking. My mum and dad smoked cigarettes. I grew up around weed smokers - my mum, until she gave up years ago, her friends, and my stepdad. My mum said she always knew I would smoke, because I used to enjoy inhaling the aroma created when she and her friends were partaking in the 'erbs. My mum tried to put up a fight, but knew she was losing the battle when I got my step-dad to roll my spliffs for me before I went out. He said it was better that he did it than someone else, and I wouldn't know what they'd put it in. Logical I thought.

I was welcomed into the hip-hop world with a spliff and a smile, and cigarettes soon became my default smoke of choice. All the guys I went out with smoked, weed and cigarettes, up until the Bobo Dread. He hated me smoking, but I wouldn't be told by him.

From 16 until 26, I hadn't had a serious relationship with a non-smoker. Smoking in our teenage, young adult world was cool. All the cool bad boys smoked. You had a cigarette after sex. Shared one at the nightbus stop. On the bus. On the tube on the way to my Saturday job (who remembers that). Smoking and drinking in the studio during all-night recording sessions. Newport Lights in NYC. Philly blunts and Rum and Raisin Haagen Daz in Harlem. Smoking a spliff with Todd Terry in the studio and then driving from Queens to Coney Island head hanging out the car feeling green. Sharing a joint on the night I hung out for the first time with the man that would become the father of my child.

I quit smoking weed regularly around 10 years ago, when I begun studying for my first degree. It just didn't agree with me anymore. Too many responsibilities, I was driving, and the two don't mix when you have a child in the back. But the cigarettes have been harder to kick. They became my stress crutch, and there's plenty of stress in life for them to be a crutch for. But for three weeks I've been attending a Smoker's Quit Clinic. Today is my Quit Day, and since 10.45am, I've been wearing a nicotine patch, and I haven't had a cigarette.

I'm done with the Eau de Ashtray fragrance, smelly hair, clothes and breath, and dry skin. I'm shake this monkeyfucker off my back, and take back my lungs from the nicotine demon. One day at a time. Wish me luck.