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    Saturday, July 24, 2010

    "Smoked Out"

    Here's a preview of one of my Journalistic Writing ICA4 articles.

    It's about a smoker. Enjoy.

    -------------
    He blew out his puff as he sat there quietly, watching the tip of his cigarette die out. He had finished the second stick of the day, so he stubbed it out and threw it into the ash tray. As he looked up, his face expressionless, he tried to recall the days of how that age old habit started out in him.

    Muhammad Arifin, is only 18 this year, but he has already been smoking for 4 years now. Studying in Nanyang Polytechnic’s Media Studies & Management (soon to be rebranded as Mass Media Management), he has been depending on the magic stick to keep him going through the tough life of polytechnic. But how did he pick it up in the first place?

    It all started when Arifin was in Secondary 2. Back then, he was schooling in Ang Mo Kio Secondary, studying in the express stream. The thing is for Ariffin, he never really had smoker friends back then. He started smoking due not to peer pressure, but more to personal issues. His dad was already a smoker, and he was having trouble with his studies. So one day, he decided to take his first puffs which lead him onto a never-ending journey of tobacco.

    “I could still remember my first pack. It was Marlboro Reds.” He said.

    “I didn’t know what else to buy, so I bought it from a shop under my block. The uncle there assumed I was old enough, and sold me the pack.”

    Nowadays, Ariffin would smoke different brands depending on his mood and the money he has in his pocket.

    Ever since, he has discreetly smoked throughout his secondary school life and into his tertiary education. He had been caught before by his parents, but after countless berates, they have more or less given up on him.

    However, Arifin had tried to quit the habit before. Over the course of his smoking career, he has tried to quit for at least about 6 times. One time, he was almost successful, going as long as 6 months without a cigarette.

    “It was because of this girl, I liked. She told me, she’ll only be with me if quit smoking – which I did. But she disappeared eventually, which gave me a reason not to quit anymore”, Arifin recalls.

    Arifin explains his life as a roller coaster ride, with more downs than ups. This made him go back to the comforts of tobacco every time something doesn’t go right. Sometimes he feels as if he doesn’t want to be dependent on the stick, seeing he isn’t exactly the healthiest guy on earth.

    He had tried various ways to get him out of the habit. At first, he tried to simply satisfy cravings by having a sweet every now and then. However, that became a much more expensive method than buying packs weekly. Eventually he tried Nicotine Gum, a gum that supposedly gives smokers their nicotine fix without the stains of tobacco. His parents bought for him the gum for his 17th birthday. He tried it a couple of times, but hated it due to its bland and spicy taste.

    No matter what he tried, the call of the cigarette was too strong for him to resist. To him, smoking isn’t just because of his addiction to nicotine. He feels at ease with it. It calms him when nothing else can.

    “Sometimes, I feel that cigarettes are the only thing that truly understands me”

    Muhammad Arifin doesn’t intend to give up smoking anytime soon now. He now believes it’s the only thing keeping him together after all he’s been through, and he doesn’t regret it at all. Even if he did have a chance to forever quit smoking, he would rather stick to the stick.