One evening I consumed a special cookie, and spent the entire night in fear of myself and the situations that surrounded me. I worked myself up into such a huff about everything and then proclaimed "AND I'M STILL SMOKING!@*)$&%? WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!"

I didn't have a smoke the entire evening.
When I woke up in the morning, I immediately craved a ciggarette. It was part of my "clear the head and get rid of the night before" routine I would usually imploy. However, this time I immediately had a disturbing picture projected in front of me. Something so vile that it instantly made me put aside the need to smoke.

Here it is.

Picture a shriveled face made out of brown clay. The mouth of this grotesque head is stretched all the way to the floor, it's non-existant chin is actually below the level of the floor. It's eyes are sewn shut. It's hair is a forest of burning ciggarettes of various lengths with a large smoke cloud that forms the length of the hair.

You know how when you vomit, a large amount of material is projected out of your mouth on the first heave? That material is ciggarette butts that flow out of the mouth and gather around the head.

The second, and final part about vomiting is the long choking gags that come up, the dry heaves that only loosen a bit of bile from the bottom of the stomach. This is the tar from the ciggarettes. It spreads up the throat and pools around the bottom of the butt pile.

This vision would appear to me each time I had an urge to smoke. I eventually learned how to even get the physical associations to go with it. Especially the feeling of choking on the ash that would coat the throat.

I drew it out on a sheet of paper, that seemed to help me visualize it as well.

Put smoking aside as the physical act it is.

-Ed