Ciggyfree Blog

He would, he says, never cheat on his wife. But each time he smokes a Camel Light, it feels like an infidelity. He promised to quit before they married.

He stubbed out his cigarette, washed his face with scented soap and for two months he abstained. He said his wedding vows, toasted her with champagne and honeymooned at a resort, all without a cigarette.

Back in Charlotte, as he faced work again, he felt an irresistible urge to smoke.

He opened his desk drawer and there it was, a pack of Camel Lights he had hidden. He reached in. With more desire than regret, he got up and returned to his old haunt, an alcove behind his office where he knew he would find the other smokers standing around a terra cotta flowerpot.

The first couple of puffs tasted bitter the way he remembers his first cigarette in junior high. Then a familiar heady adrenaline rush kicked in, and he was hooked all over again.

He is The Closet Smoker, and that pack of Camel Lights in his desk is his dirty little secret.