Journalist Mick Boskamp writes about addiction and the role Castle Craig's addiction treatment has played in his life. In the Netherlands, Castle Craig offers outpatient addiction care in the form of day treatment, individual therapy and group therapy.
Photography: Paul Tolenaar
I will never forget the day I closed the book 'Start smoking' for good. And the place where that happened neither.
Journalist Mick Boskamp writes about addiction and the role Castle Craig's addiction treatment has played in his life. In the Netherlands, Castle Craig offers outpatient addiction care in the form of day treatment, individual therapy and group therapy.
Photography: Paul Tolenaar
I will never forget the day I closed the book 'Start smoking' for good. And the place where that happened neither.
It was on November 5, 2013, on my birthday, that I smoked my last cigarette. I also remember where I stood. In the covered smoking cabin at Castle Craig in Scotland. To anyone who wanted to hear it, I said, 'This was my last cigarette. So long, nicotine. ' And to this day I have kept my word. It wasn't easy, but I was lucky to be in the right place to stop doing something.
There were several reasons why I dared to take the big step to a life without a cigarette. Shamefully, it wasn't my health that came first, but my financial situation. It was not exactly rosy when I was treated at Castle Craig. In addition, the average price of a pack of cigarettes in Scotland fluctuated around 9 British pounds, which converted to around 11 euros (the pound was then slightly higher than now). I smoked at least one pack a day and that meant that I lost almost 80 euros a week on smoking alone, while I had less than 7 euros to spend for 40 days. Count out your loss.
And what did it bring me? Exactly.
Quitting smoking is one thing, stopping an addiction permanently is what the British call another ballgame. And I knew that from experience. About 20 years ago I would have stopped overnight. While on holiday in Greece I had read Alan Carr's book 'Quit Smoking'. Carr was a chain smoker until 1983. According to his own words, he usually smoked around 100 cigarettes (!) A day. In 1983 he stopped smoking permanently because of a special experience. What experience that was was not clear in the book. Before that, he had always started smoking again after several attempts to quit, despite the fact that he described himself in his books as a strong personality. The method in his book, described as The Easy Way method, really appealed to me. So it was that simple.
'I dropped a cigarette on the spot'
After three months of not smoking, I flew to Los Angeles for my employer Playboy Netherlands to interview Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. When I got there, the good man didn't feel like the interview anymore. So I had gone to America for nothing. The first thing I did was bump someone's cigarette on the spot and the day after I smoked another pack a day.
And then it will be 2013 and in Castle Craig I learn that willpower is a bad counselor if you want to stop an addiction. After I had smoked my last cigarette on that particular November 5, I took part in the so-called Smoking Cessation in the castle, which was given for nurse Guy Heath, and in which clients who seriously wanted to quit smoking or who had quit could voluntarily participate. . Because quitting smoking is not mandatory at Castle Craig. It is recommended. Or as can be read on CC's Scottish site: 'We want our patients to leave Castle Craig at the peak of their health and to continue that way thereafter.'
In addition to my financial situation and my health that I was concerned about, there was another important reason why I wanted to quit smoking. For others this may not be the case, but for me cigarettes tasted like more. And I don't mean more cigarettes, but drugs and alcohol. At the Smoking Cessations I learned that you can successfully quit smoking if you also use the principles of the twelve steps here. Like step 1, where you acknowledge your addiction and the consequences. In other words: where you face the facts.
'The trek is over and faster than you think'
And those facts did not lie. A week before I quit, I had picked up butts from the ground around Castle Craig because I had run out of money for cigarettes. I mean, it's hard to imagine eating out of a garbage as a bum, but collecting and smoking butts is even worse in my view. And then all those ridiculous excuses you make to keep smoking, like the weight gain that comes when you quit and makes you look less healthy. In addition, you conveniently forget that there are 4000 chemicals in a cigarette, 69 of which can cause cancer.
We also learned to anticipate when you feel like a cigarette. You think that trait will never go away, but that is what your addiction whispers to you. That pull will pass and faster than you think.
It is now 2017. In a year's time I will be celebrating my five-year anniversary as a non-smoker and teetotaler (of drugs and alcohol). And of all the addictions I have managed to overcome to this day, smoking is the only one that occasionally gives head. Sometimes there are times when I have a serious craving for a cigarette. And during those moments I always think about what I learned at Castle Craig. In that respect it is also very nice that CC is the symposium Make De Zorg Smoke Free supports which will take place in Utrecht on 31 May.
And then I am not going to smoke a cigarette.