The Rules to Break

RULE TO BREAK

Just once won’t hurt

I remember when I first started smoking. I was six. My mother used to get us kids to light her fags for her from the gas cooker in the kitchen.⁹ The only way to get them going properly was to take a drag on them. By the time I was eight I was stealing cigarettes from my mother. At ten, I was ‘borrowing’ money from her to buy my own with. It crept up on me insidiously, years before I had any idea smoking was bad for you, and it took me decades to kick the habit. Quitting was much tougher than not starting would have been all those years ago.

It’s so easy to tell yourself you’re not going to make a habit of drinking, or eating badly, or cutting the time too fine to get to work, or having a glass of brandy before ...