Smoking Ruined my Whole Life

Jim Aylett, NSW

Watching the news on the television the other morning, there was a segment on smoking and what it does to your health. It started me thinking, not only has it ruined my health, it has ruined my whole life.

I took up smoking when I was fourteen, it was the in thing to do at the time. There were ads everywhere. They were on the buses, trains, trams, bill boards. They were advertised in the papers, magazines, football matches and all other sporting events. They were brainwashing everyone. They were saying be a man smoke such and such brand. At the time it seemed the thing to do.

It must be good for you, it seemed all our sporting heroes were smokers and they were big, strong, and fit. Besides all my mates were taking up smoking and you felt like a freak if you didn’t smoke. At fourteen I was very naïve, I took up smoking, the biggest mistake of my life. By fifteen I was addicted. In those days the cigarettes came in packets of ten and I was smoking a packet a day. At this stage smoking had not seemed to affect my health, but it was starting to affect my life. About the time I took up smoking I left school and got a job in a printing factory. Not being able to smoke in the factory because of all the combustible material, the printers could go out to the toilet to smoke. Of course I would wander out with them.

When I turned fifteen I became an indentured apprentice in the printing trade. I had a bright future in front of me. The boss thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread and used to take me with him to meet some of his clients. I still remember his favourite saying when some of the clients would say ‘a bit small isn’t he?’ he would reply ‘good things come in small packages.’ He would then rave on about how he was going to pay for an extra two years apprenticeship, to do six colour work, which would have made me in the highest paid and sort after printers in the printing industry.

As I said I had a bright future in front of me but smoking was my undoing. The foreman, if he caught me in the toilet smoking would kick me up the rear and send me back to work. Young and stupid I thought he was picking on me because I was the bosses pet. When I think back now he was probably doing for my own good. So I defied him, I would sneak out to the toilet every chance I could get and have a smoke in one of the cubicles. The foreman was no fool, he knew what I was doing. All those trips to the toilet. It seemed he was always having a go at me. As I grew older I would rebel and have a go back at him. We were at it all the time. I could see no harm in it, he could. When I think back now he was a lot smarter than me. I was well into my fourth year when the boss found out I smoked. I was shocked. In five years he had found out I smoked. Admittedly I had never smoked in front of him, deep down I must have known it was a bad habit.

Anyway, when he found out he called me up to his office and gave me a good talking to. He told me about when he was in Changi prison camp and how hundreds of fellow prisoners died of starvation because they would swap their rations for tobacco. I told him I had been smoking for five years and did not think I could give up. He suggested I go and live with him at his place at Pymble, that I may get away from the temptation and bad influence of my mates in Newtown. It did not work. I lived with the boss for about six months. It did not work, I felt guilty sneaking around behind his back and having a smoke whenever I could. I was only deceiving a kind gentleman who was trying to help me. At this stage smoking had turned me into a sneaking little deviate. Not liking being a sneak I moved back to Newtown where I could smoke out in the open. I still worked at the printing factory but still had to be devious and sneak a smoke whenever I could. If the foreman asked me if I was smoking I would lie and say no.

Now I was a sneak, a liar and a deviate. I did not like what I was becoming so I shot the apprenticeship in. Not knowing why at the time I kept on smoking. If any one had asked at the time was I addicted I would have said no, but I realised later I was.

Fourteen years after taking up smoking at the age of twenty eight I suffered a mild heart attack. I was hospitalised with damage done to my heart. I was told by the doctors to give up smoking and drinking and go on a special diet. Drinking did not bother me at the time as I was a very light drinker. At the time of my hospitalisation I don’t think the doctors knew the full extent of the damage smoking could cause. I still remember them around my bed debating if I gave up smoking I would probably gain weight which would just as bad for me. In those days most of them smoked themselves so they knew how hard it was to give it up. In those days patients were allowed to smoke in bed, so if you were a smoker the nurse would get you an ashtray. The wards in the hospital at the time was one big ward with about twenty beds in them. Out of the twenty patients I would say at least ten or twelve patients smoked, the room would be full of smoke. There was nothing ever said about passive smoke, so I take it little was known about the effects of smoking. None of the non smokers ever complained, so like the smoker they probably believed it was not as bad as some tried to make out. The doctors who tried to tell the people were looked at as crack pots. They had no proof they were only guessing.

They might not have had the proof back them, but going by modern science they were right. As I said earlier fourteen years after taking up smoking I suffered a mild heart attack. I was diagnosed with having slight damage done to the heat, I was told to give up smoking, go on a diet and take it easy.

Still not believing that it was the smoking that was causing the problem, I kept on smoking. By this time I was smoking about sixty a day. Surely no one would sell you poison and advertise it everywhere.

From then on till 1987 I was in and out of hospital with minor heart attacks, then in 1987 came the big one, a major heart attack. By this time the doctors and surgeons knew for certain smoking causes heart disease.

The doctors said the condition could be fixed by performing by-pass surgery, but the problem was, the surgeons refused to operate on a person unless they had given up smoking for at least six weeks. In a way I don’t blame the surgeons for not operating on a smoker, why waste the time and money on a person who wants to keep on killing themselves. If anyone asked me now if I was addicted I would say yes. I spent six weeks in intensive care not caring if I lived or died. The whole time I still craved a cigarette, so whenever I could, I would get a nurse to wheel me out to the toilet under the pretext of going to the toilet where instead I would sneak a smoke. If only I could put in writing the pain I went through in those six weeks. I was informed later if I had not been a smoker the operation could have been done immediately. The operation was finally carried out, only after the administrator of the hospital found out some poor wretch had been in intensive care for six weeks.

Not only was I a sneak, a liar, a deviate but I was no longer classed as a human being, no one seemed to care if I lived or died. Maybe the operation could have been done fifteen years earlier if I had not been a smoker. I would not have had to go through all the pain I have been through. Yes I do have a dirty on the tobacco companies. I had another by-pass done in 1992, but not without lying and cheating. I still suffer with severe angina and still continue to smoke. Call me a fool, an idiot or whatever you like, or call me an addict. Between me and the wife we spend $140.00 a week on the filthy habit, which is quite a lot out of our invalid pension. Until I seen the segment on television the other morning I had never given it a thought about seeking compensation for what has been done to me. How does anyone compensate someone for forty years of pain and suffering???  

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Page last updated on 13/11/2001