My father, Joe, smoked cigarettes when he was younger, but he decided he wanted to give up. First, he migrated to small cigars, in the belief that they are easier to give up. Then he joined a group of friends in a bet.<\/p>\n
They would all give up at the same time; the first person to start smoking would have to buy a bottle of scotch for each of the remaining four people. The next person to fall off the wagon would buy a bottle of scotch for each of the remaining three, and so on.<\/p>\n
A short time later, he met with the rest of the group. They were all finding it too hard, and wanted to cancel the bet. Joe declined, but after some negotiations succumbed to accepting one bottle of scotch from the entire group, which he proceeded to share with them all.<\/p>\n
He never smoked again.<\/p>\n
At first, he received thankful comments – unlike most reformed smokers, he wasn’t anti-smoking and didn’t mind others smoking near him. Over time that changed. He became a rabid anti-smoker, and couldn’t stand the smell of smoke – or smokers.<\/p>\n
Joe once yelled at my brother because my brother had let someone smoke in Joe’s car. My brother decried his innocence. Nobody had smoked in the car. No smokers had been in the car. All that happened is that my brother worked in area that allowed smoking! His jacket had picked up the stench of cigarettes, then he had driven in the car for an hour. The car seat had picked up enough of a stale cigarette smell to disturb Joe!<\/p>\n
Joe once flew from Asia to Australia with a mild bout of bronchitis. This was before all flights to Australia were non-smoking, and, while he had a non-smoking seat, it was only one row forward from the smoking area. The smoke was intolerable on his already ragged throat. He begged to be moved, but there was no space.<\/p>\n
He could only see one solution. Medicate himself with free alcohol.<\/p>\n
Coming into Australia, he was suffering some of the side-effects of this medication. Put less delicately, he was as drunk as a newt. <\/p>\n