It’s over six years since I stopped smoking. I was always a light smoker and had times where I didn’t smoke at all but I finally completely quit the habit when I met someone who didn’t smoke.  I must confess that for a good while after that, if I was out and had been drinking, I did sometimes beg a friend for a drag on their fag and I may even have had the occasional one all to myself but those times were few and far between and I eventually stopped even that.  So, I count myself as stopping from the point I decided to stop, with a few little blips after that time.  It’s been years since I had a drag on a cigarette and I have no desire at all to do so now.

Very rarely I get a weird fleeting memory of Player’s No.6 cigarettes.  The smell and the taste come back to me and I think it was because these were the first cigarettes I smoked, way back, as a schoolgirl on the train on the way to school.  Because then, you could smoke just about anywhere.

Thinking tonight about my lack of desire to smoke I wondered if the fact that it is less ‘in your face’ now has helped me. Well, I am sure it has, the cues and triggers aren’t there now.  The temptation has gone.  Which led me on to thinking about how going to the pub or a club is so much easier now there are no smokers puffing seductively on their fags and wafting their delicious scent around.  You have to actively seek the ‘pushers’ out now.  It’s much, much easier not to smoke.

This train of thought took me further.  It is acknowledged that there is a big problem in the UK with alcohol consumption.  We have a very high rate of liver disease in young adults and we know about all the other harmful effects of problem drinking.

So, I thought, what about if we made pubs ALCOHOL FREE, in much the same way as we have banned smoking?  Drinkers would have to go outside to a designated area for a pint or a voddie and coke.  They could stand with the smokers.  It would certainly make me think twice about drinking.

Do you think I’m on to something?