Chapter 36 Cigarettes and other addictive substances

My dad's drinking capacity is not bad among southerners, and he also smokes. My mother often hates this.I didn't know much about cigarettes when I was a child, but I watched my father smoke and liked to play with the foil inside the cigarette box, so I generally know that cigarette boxes are soft and hard.The soft ones are loose and wrinkled, and you don't like them; the hard ones are more square and can hold crayons. Although my father smokes, he is not too presumptuous. After dinner, when we all leave the table, he will have one for himself.Although my mother often scolded him for smoking, she would smoke one occasionally, such as when her stomach hurts.Later, when I wanted to smoke occasionally, I pretended to have a stomachache.

My dad is from the suburbs of the city, and it is said that the first smokers were local tobacco smokers, as well as country sparkling wine, local roast chicken, etc., which are necessary for country banquets. The taste of smoking has changed slightly.Because my mother compares Lin Zexu at home, I don't like smoking very much psychologically, and I often get choked by smoke when I go out to eat with my father, so I have always been a little afraid.When I was in elementary school, the media publicized that the leading man in the Marlboro ad had died of lung cancer. When I read books when I was a child, I could always see all kinds of smoke passages.Mark Twain laughed at himself and said that quitting smoking is very easy, and he has quit more than a hundred times; Yu Hua said at the end that Liqun Feima West Lake and other brands, some Zhejiang friends said that they are indeed the treasures of Zhejiang; Zhu Ziqing said that smoking is a Stuff, similar to chewing olives, requires a lot of effort; then there are the dry tobacco of Old Man Sun in Gu Long's novels, Sherlock Holmes's pipe, and the "crushing the cigarette to death" (Lin Shaohua's translation) that keeps appearing in Haruki Murakami's books.It was probably the first time that I felt a little bit about tobacco. It was here that the God of Monte Cristo coaxed Albert to smoke Turkish cigarettes and drink coffee, and listened to Heidi tell the story of the past.The separation and reunion of light and shadow surrounded by smog is indeed suitable for reminiscing about the past, as if everything that has passed away is returning.Haruki Murakami has a similar description in it, which probably means that smoking in the sun means that the soul floats out of the body.

Later, as I made more smoking friends, I felt more personally.Some friends can’t leave their cigarettes, just like I can’t stop being addicted to chocolate; some people have a cigarette when the mood comes, and they smoke with a little introspection, each has his own preferences.A friend talked to me about this in detail, and it probably means that young people smoke cigarettes for their own reasons.Some are purely for the feeling that if you smoke a cigarette, you will grow up; some are for blending into the surrounding atmosphere of "we are not children, but adults"; some, as the saying goes, are just for fun.

That is to say, before smoking becomes physically dependent (in fact, there are not many people physically dependent on smoking), it is often a very symbolic thing.So Zhu Ziqing summed it up perfectly: without it, it will be the same, but with it, it will have more meaning, and you can touch it. Some brands of cigarettes are known through girls. For example, a girl smokes green clothes for a hundred years. The sticks are very thin. A clear but real feeling, like going to a distant place.See you again a few years later, she quits smoking and drinking, and drinks Pu'er tea instead.Talking about it with her probably means that smoking and alcohol represent a stage.

I know quite a few girls who smoke, but not many are addicted.Most of their smoking is related to emotions.There are seasons when people are entangled in their emotions and can't find a suitable way to express them for a while. They sit in a daze and smoke a cigarette, and then spit it out.No matter how strong and domineering every girl is, there will be a certain season in the end when she sits in a daze with her right hand resting on her chin, forgetting the tender and defenseless time when the cigarette is still burning. For cigars, I once thought they were an enhanced version of cigarettes.In the NBA, cigars are used to celebrate achievements. In Cuba, they are the representatives of Guevara and Castro. In movies, they are the cool stuff of Patton and Wall Street tycoons. In Churchill, they are a symbol of his great spirit.For things with similar labels that mean too much, I am a little bit resistant, so I don't like it.A friend gave me some last winter and taught me that I don't smoke.My friend advised me to give it a try: "Anyway, it's not very harmful to the lungs, and the impact on the body is not as great as cigarettes. Try it, if you don't like it, send it to your parents."

Then I tried it. But until now, I haven't been able to smoke a cigar with a large ring gauge.Romeo y Julieta, some Cohiba hand-rolled large ring diameters, after smoking most of them, you will feel dizzy and nausea, probably the so-called drunken cigars.The small rings of Partga and Danneman are slightly better. Some friends have recommended Danneman sweet cognac, which is small and sweet, but I still feel uncomfortable. The best hand-rolled cigar leaves are fine in texture, carefully rolled and burn beautifully.Because it has been fermented, its taste is mellow, so good cigars should be hidden. I don’t have this equipment at hand, so I usually buy one when I think of it, and smoke it within two days.A cigar that is not properly hydrated draws hard, dry and spicy.

Good cigars cannot enter the lungs, and people with light cigars can smell the smoke at the rear end a bit choking.But the taste of the first half of the cigar is always very good, even beginners will not feel uncomfortable, the taste is graceful and colorful, sweet and bitter.I joked with my friends that the taste of Patga is like gaseous dark chocolate + roasted beans.Especially the first two bites are always fragrant and thick, so you can eat it like chocolate.This is similar to drinking beer in summer. The first sip is always full of mixed feelings, which is wonderful.But to some extent, a good cigar is similar to old Pu'er, old wine or even good ham. You can taste the mellow and soft fermented taste.

When I went home during the Spring Festival, I brought several boxes of different cigars to my parents, trying to make my parents smoke less.The slogan at that time was, "Smoking less, smoking better".Dad didn't care about it, but Mom couldn't put it down to Danneman cigarillos, and she thought it was good to smoke while surfing the Internet.Moreover, her old man completely ignored the stereotypes of cigars to be paired with wine and coffee, thinking that Pu'er tea is the best pairing, and it also relieves stomach pain. My dad persuaded me to smoke less cigars, he obviously started from himself, fearing that I would become addicted like him.I told him that I actually smoked less in Shanghai, at most two cigarettes a week.

This mentality is actually very funny, roughly like this: people are often influenced by the value of objects, a bottle of wine at 30 yuan, you will drink it after drinking it; Grasp the texture slowly.After I finished my work, I said, take a rest and smoke a cigar, and I will get such a psychological hint, "Although it is not expensive, it is still worth a little money, just take it slow", so I took a serious rest.So sometimes it is not the taste of the cigar that is good, but the good mood at that time.Roughly so. Talk about addiction. I have seen all kinds of strange addictions, some people like to sharpen pencils, some people like to peel peanuts, some people make tea meticulously, which makes people feel a sense of ritual, some people light cigarettes as beautifully as movies or magic tricks, some people are as continuous as bullets on heavy machine guns Constant snacking, etc.

A friend said that at first she drank green tea as an intermission, but later she felt that green tea was the most fragrant and refreshing, but it was sharp and cold, so she drank black tea.Over time, she habitually extended the time she drank tea.In order not to create a sense of tension of "hey, I'm procrastinating and sabotaging work", she went to learn the tea art, and then performed the whole set.So during the tea making, she can avoid the pressure, finish the whole set of procedures in a rhythmic and correct manner, drink it, and have a whole set of rest time. Of course, she says, after getting used to the routine, she finds fun in each one.The procedures of ironing cups, making tea, and ordering water are well done and have their own sense of satisfaction.I can probably understand her feeling. For example, girls who are good at cooking know that cooking a dish, washing, shredding, beating eggs, thickening, frying, and a series of procedures can easily breed happiness.Small pleasures also come from this small point and small piecemeal place.Therefore, people who are addicted to something are easily obsessed with details and processes. Finally, if they want to do a good job, they must first sharpen their tools. They begin to collect all kinds of equipment - cigar cutters, coffee pots, tea utensils, nutcrackers, etc., poisoning gradually deepening.

Many people like to do one thing repeatedly, which is related to memory.Some people love to listen to a certain song, maybe because they like the mood they felt when they first heard that song; some people like to smoke a certain kind of cigarette repeatedly, maybe because they liked people who smoked that kind of cigarette before.The mood when reading a certain book, who is next to you when drinking a certain beverage, who you once cracked and cracked peanuts with.In many cases, it is not so much an addiction to doing a certain thing as an addiction to the scene, sound, light, smell, and mood of a certain thing. Xu Meijing's song "The Cigarette You Smoked" described love, memory and taste in a charming and moving way. Xin Xiaoqi sang "Your Fingers Smell the Smell of Tobacco" in "Taste", which is much more graceful. I didn't know it when I was young, but now I understand it a little bit A little bit. In the first episode of the third season of "Six People", Monica just broke up with Richard, and she can't stop smelling the cigars he smoked every day.Probably something like this: Smoke itself is a relaxing thing, and when you relax, your emotions tend to fluctuate and become loose.You smoke a cigarette, smell that smell, and then the mood you have had will be stored in this smell.Cigarettes, alcohol, tea, and even love between men and women are the same, not every mouthful is perfect every time, so it makes people want to try again and again, so it keeps going like this.In the afternoon of the second day of the lunar new year, after I was busy entertaining with a group of relatives, I hid in the window and basked in the winter sun. After smoking a Patga, I was half dizzy and felt like I was going to melt into the sun and the smoke illuminated by the sun. , and many things just float on the clouds.This feeling is indescribable, and it can only be fully hooked again next time you smoke one.So it’s the same sentence: everyone’s addiction can be described as a long series of bittersweet stories. Many people admit that the story of addiction is uninteresting, and traces back to the beautiful things that are always about dreams or love or some pure time.So everyone has a certain cigarette or a certain thing or a certain person that they can't quit, always.