I was thirteen years old when I smoked my first cigarette. I was with my friend, Anya, chilling after school in one of our favourite spots – a green space near the church that saw its doors open to the general public, once the Christianity was allowed to return to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We were sitting on the bench, admiring the view, which was indeed amazing: the church was beautiful, and so was the green space next to it: lots of trees and benches, and flowers blossoming in anticipation of summer.
Anya was my classmate, a year younger than me and she had been smoking already for a couple of years. All my friends smoked by then. It was easy. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow, where I lived then, had lots of ‘lareks’, a sort of tiny corner shops, where one could buy coca-cola, Twix and Mars, alcohol and cigarettes. No one was asking for any ID, and if we wished we could just carry on drinking first thing in the morning, and smoke ourselves to oblivion.
Anya had started smoking due to a difficult family situation. Her dad drunk, and she was struggling with her identity. Her vision was bad and she wore glasses that were hiding her beautiful eyes. In a couple of years she would recover her self-confidence, but when we were sitting next to the church on that beautiful spring day, Anya was struggling, and so was I. I had also a very difficult family situation, and was unhappy. Lots of teenagers were unhappy then. Russia struggled following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Products were lacking in grocery shops, people didn’t know what to do with themselves, and young people, especially, had it tough. No food, no clothes, no nothing, expect of what was on offer in the ‘lareks’.
What do teenagers do when they struggle? They resort to harming their body, be it drugs or cigarettes, or whatever is available. And cigarettes were easily available back then.
It was a particular difficult day for me then, and when Anya offered me a cigarette, I took it. She showed me how to inhale it properly, and I succeeded at a first try. My body reacted at once. I got sick and threw up, but unfortunately, it didn’t deter me from starting to smoke. It helped psychologically, it helped me with anxiety, it helped me during very difficult years in Russia.
And so, I started to smoke very young, and I couldn’t stop. I carried on smoking till I was 27 years old, living in Amsterdam then. I tried to stop cold turkey, and managed for a couple of months to lead my life without cigarettes, but I got unwell, and ended up in my first psychosis. I couldn’t sleep. I resumed smoking: it helped me with my anxiety. It helped me to live, despite a terrible cough that I developed at some point. I knew that I had to stop, but nothing worked. I tried nicotine patches, nicotine gums, Chinese acupuncture, homeopathy, everything possible, but I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t just a nicotine addiction, it was a deep psychological need.
Eventually, it was during my trip to Moscow, years later, to see my family, that a solution was found. My dad begged me to stop, because of my cough. He was extremely worried. And so we went to a shop and bought me electric cigarettes. I suffered the whole day without my cigarettes, but on the second day it got easier, and on the third day my cough disappeared.
Since then I switched to vapes, I tried different juices, ending up vaping grape flavor. I resumed doing sport, I started to breath, I became healthier.
Of course, it would be better if I didn’t vape at all. But if I can’t vape, I know that I will return to cigarettes. When you start smoking at an early age, odds that you can stop are almost non-existent. It incorporates into your identity. The gesture, the process, the crave for nicotine.
And so I vape.
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