The tobacco papers #2: Love, loss and dispensation
Swapping a nicotine addiction for a…nicotine addiction is genius unparalleled. I’ve found a way to reminisce on adolescent rebelliousness and keep my breath fresh, increase my life expectancy and maintain my patience levels (kept dangerously low for fools and cold-callers). Fundamentally I’ve found a modus vivendi to maintain my addiction so that it is a) socially acceptable and b) I get praised for it. However, what gum doesn’t have is that dirty edge that sets my pleasure receptors tingling and in the absence of funds to embark on a crack addiction (I also like sanity and teeth), I need more than Polacrilex and Xylitol. To indulge, sate, refrain, relapse and complain about it in the way of the true addict, I need online NRT.
For those of you whose moral fibre has been too strong to light up and think better of it, or indeed, those who did before computers replaced archaic notions like face-to-face interaction and concentration spans, you won’t ever feel the love that emanates from the humble laptop. No, not radiation or the glare from an old PC without a filter. The wonderful cheerleaders that are sites that urge you to double click and quit.
Sure, they’re run by companies that make you pay more for your nicotine fix than you ever did when you ripped through a pack of 20 per (work)day. Yes, they make you enter every conceivable detail about yourself, short of your sorting code, turn-ons and how many socks you own. But the reward is stronger than your weakling addict resolve could ever be. Pure, unadulterated validation sent to your inboxes up to thrice daily.
Who doesn’t want to hear that they’re wonderful, an unstoppable winner with more staying power than 60% of the population? It’s more positive praise than you receive in most relationships with real people. And, even better, it’s addictive. After the initial oddness of having a homepage tell you that you’re getting more fertile by the minute, you begin to look forward to learning how your body is desperately trying to re-rectify itself after years of you sabotaging it with a blow torch. The nightly textual check-up feels like an attractive medic at your bedside, tucking you in with a conspiratorial wink at your genius for doing what you should have done when you were first offered a cigarette – declined because it’s carcinogenic and idiotic. In fact, the e-support is so helpful that I did consider registering with another company to receive two sets of back pats that I could then cross-reference and play off each other like sparring suitors or separated parents; luckily I refrained before invalidating my own right to data protection through zealous pursuit of NRT.
But, like any good tragic hero, my pride became my fatal flaw. Illness struck – and by all accounts, irony – and unable to sign in, my virtual fan abandoned me. Though not without warning it seems. Checking my inbox, there are timely warnings to sign in, complete my tasks, get back the love – or face being cast out forevermore. It’s most disappointing. Unqualified adoration – even from a computer-generated system – is high maintenance stuff.
