SMOKING

My father smoked, my mother smoked, and my three brothers smoked, so it was inevitable that I should turn out to be a smoker - and boy do I smoke; have done since I was twelve years old…… now thirty eight and still smoking like a trooper.

When I think back over my life, I remember that my father had the most awful smokers cough one could imagine, and this was copied exactly by his pet cockatiel Charley - turning his daily ritual into one of the funniest things you could ever hear.

You could hear dad barking as soon as he got out of bed, and Charley boy down stairs doing his perfect imitation. As kids we would all stay in bed listening, sniggering under the bed clothes until he and his pet stopped their duet.

My father’s cough was legendary, all my friends who stayed over were in awe of it. They discussed it in detail with their friends - my father and his pet bird singing in harmony together, it was embarrassing.

The other day my son Paul, named after Paul Gascoigne my hero. Fantastic footballer, my son has even got blond curly hair, as did my hero - where did that come from? been meaning to ask my wife that question this last seven years. Anyway the other day my son who was sitting beside me on the garden bench where we were both admiring our goldfish in the pond that I painstakingly hand dug, lined and designed and filled with wonderful plants and fish, looked up and said to me “Dad I love you”. “What a wonderful thing to say“ I replied, as I put my arm around him, choking back the tears, Paul looked into my eyes and said, “When I grow up dad, I am never going to smoke“.

Paul then told me about a girl in his class at school who didn’t have a daddy because this thing called cancer had taken him to heaven. “This thing called cancer comes from smoking and coughing and you are coughing every morning dad, I said I love you because that girl told me that she never told her daddy that she loved him and now she wants to tell him, but she can’t“.

Out of babes mouths eh.

Tears came to my eyes as I hugged him even tighter “I love you”, I said with my bottom lip wobbling. I knew what my son was trying to tell me. I knew then that something had to be done to become a none smoker. I have tried many times before to give up smoking, I even tried the patches, for all they where worth. A friend of mine did suggest I use the patches to cover my eyes, and that way I wouldn’t be able to find my fags - ha bloody ha. But another friend told me about this man he went to see to help him give up smoking. He said he was recommended by another chap who also became a non-smoker. Dr Ken, as he called him, of Cognitive-Therapies, was the man that has helped so many people with their habits and addictions.

So guess where I’m to next week? yes you’ve got it…Cognitive -Therapies.