Cigarettes and credit fraud

I had a very odd experience on Monday night, for which I have absolutely no explanation. I was sitting and reading when I had an intense craving for a cigarette. I wasn't reading anything about smoking, nor had I been in the company of smokers, and I hadn't had a drink or anything. Nor had I had a stressful day, or a row with the kids or anything else that one might think of as a trigger.

It's well over two years since I stopped smoking, and I found it quite easy to stop. I think that is because I really wanted to. I had found it incredibly difficult the twenty times before – which is probably why those ones go down as failures. And I think that’s because I felt I ought to stop, rather than that I wanted to. Five days of “ought to” are easily trumped by “but I need one”.

Stopping played a little bit of havoc with my metabolism for a while, and there is the need to “do something” with your hands, but avoiding smokers for a couple of weeks and it was done.

So why then did I finish a chapter and then think – “Ooh, time for a ciggie”? And when I went to have a cup of tea and a (purely medicinal you understand) chocolate biscuit, these didn't satisfy the desire. It was about an hour afterwards that the feeling had passed.

I know many ex-smokers who say they still have that sort of craving often. Usually it is linked to (or perhaps enhanced by) booze, but they get through it. And if they are somewhere were they can have a cigarette, they probably do, and feel bad about it the next day, but don’t rush out to buy a packet of twenty before work.

And since Monday? Nothing. No desire at all. And that is despite having been with people who smoke at various times, so having access to the stuff. So I’m putting it down to some small and usually quiet part of my brain that woke up, had a bit of a moan and then either dozed off again or was beaten into submission by the more regular contributors to my consciousness*.

And that leaves me just a little nervous – because things that I thought were in the past and dealt with, clearly aren't.  I need to keep my guard up.

Helpfully, I’m delighted that my bank has helped make this easier for me by cancelling my plastic card for reasons of fraud. So, I can’t buy ciggies even if I want to. To be fair, they are doing their job as the card has been scammed somehow (and it was clear from my call with them that they think they know where this happened – they just won’t tell me. It’s always a garage isn't it?).  So I support what they are doing, of course. I just think “shit, I've got no money” even though I can’t actually think of anything for which I need it. Think that I’m going to need to start keeping a hundred quid in a safe place somewhere as a fall back. But then it’ll be there when Mr Craving calls. Or Mr Burglar for that matter. Oh dear, what to do?

* Note for any brain experts reading this – yes, I know that isn't really how the brain works, but it’s a model that makes me comfortable, like the one where I still imagine the bank has a box in a safe with my money in it. Or did have, until the fraudster struck.