美国国家公共电台 NPR In 'Nicotine,' A Longtime Smoker Confronts His Old Habit

 

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: 

Gregor Hens does not smoke anymore. He reminds us of that fact many times in his memoir¹ "Nicotine²." It's kind of like the more times he says it, the more true it becomes. Hens joined me from the BBC in Berlin. And he said he started the book after about eight months of not smoking.

GREGOR HENS: I was trying to figure out how to deal with my withdrawal³.

MCEVERS: (Laughter).

HENS: I decided⁴ (laughter) there would be two possible ways of doing it - either to completely ignore cigarettes and everything about cigarettes or to confront it head on. So I did and basically chronicled my struggle.

MCEVERS: As a - I'll just totally admit it - constantly on-again, off-again smoker⁵, I was afraid to read your book because I thought, oh, God, if I read it, I'm just going to think about it all the time.

HENS: Right.

MCEVERS: And then I'm going to start smoking. But I didn't.

HENS: Good, great.

MCEVERS: So the book is broken into chapters. Each one is its own kind of wonderful little essay. Your earliest cigarette memories are really striking. I wonder if you could tell us about the New Year's Eve when you were five or six years old.

HENS: I was very young. I have two older brothers, where - we went out at night to light fireworks for New Year's Eve. It's a German tradition. We went out there. It was a cold night. And there was only one lighter⁶. And my brothers were fighting over this lighter.

And my mother gave me a cigarette to light the rockets with, to hold the glowing cigarette to the fuse and then the rocket will go off. And of course, you do this a couple of times, and the cigarette starts going out. So my mother said, well, you have to take a drag...

MCEVERS: To keep it going.

HENS: ...To keep it going, yeah. And I did. And I had a coughing fit. The adults thought it was really funny. And that was my first taste. And then after a while, I looked forward to the cigarette more than to the fireworks.

MCEVERS: Wow. So a smoker was born that night, it sounds like.

HENS: Indeed.

MCEVERS: Knowing what you know now about spending a life smoking, would you change anything? Would you go back and change that moment? Or would you still smoke that cigarette on New Year's Eve?

HENS: Who knows? Who knows what I will be thinking in 20 years if I get cancer or something like that?

MCEVERS: Right.

HENS: So I'm just telling the story as is. It's part of my life. It's part of my personality. And that's fine. I don't complain about it in the book.

MCEVERS: Yeah.

HENS: I don't criticize anything or anyone.

MCEVERS: You don't preach.

HENS: I don't preach. I think it's part of my life, and it's worth telling as a story. And that's what I do.

MCEVERS: You conduct some experiments in the course of the book. At one point, you take a cigarette apart and sort of examine all its different pieces. Another time, you go to a hypnotist. And this is I think after you'd already quit smoking.

HENS: Yes.

MCEVERS: (Laughter) You were such a skeptic⁷ about this hypnotist.

HENS: Yeah. Talking to him, I realized that he had himself never smoked, but he considered himself a smoking cessation specialist. And that made me suspicious.

MCEVERS: (Laughter).

HENS: But I've relapsed many, many times. And it's usually been in moments of crisis, of trauma⁸. So if something terrible would happen to me, like a bicycle accident or a breakup of a relationship...

MCEVERS: Yeah.

HENS: The first thing I would do is - oh, OK, I'm feeling so bad. I might as well have a cigarette. So that's why I went to the hypnotist.

MCEVERS: Did it work, though? Did you relapse after that?

HENS: No, no. I haven't smoked since (laughter).

MCEVERS: Oh, well, OK then.

HENS: It worked. I don't know which part...

MCEVERS: Give us the guy's number.

(LAUGHTER)

HENS: Yeah.

MCEVERS: I mean, it's so interesting. Yeah, you talked about in some ways almost fantasizing about something bad happening to you so you could have a cigarette. I...

HENS: Right.

MCEVERS: ...Have to say. That is a very familiar thing.

HENS: Isn't it amazing? I mean that tells you how strong the addiction⁹ is...

MCEVERS: Right.

HENS: ...How much it means psychologically because you would actually think, like, oh, maybe if something bad happens to me, I have an excuse...

MCEVERS: Yeah.

HENS: ...To have another cigarette.

MCEVERS: You write about an Italian writer who has written extensively about the LC, the last cigarette, and how many LCs he's had. In fact, you even call it the LLC. Like, is this the last, last cigarette, you know? And, like, he sort of delights...

HENS: Right.

MCEVERS: ...On the idea of the last cigarette. I'm wondering if you could tell us about your LC.

HENS: The last cigarette I didn't really notice as a last cigarette. I was out having dinner with my wife and her friend. And it was a beautiful summer evening. And we were sitting outside in front of an Italian restaurant, talking, drinking wine. And this friend of my wife's and I shared a pack of cigarettes.

And then it was over. And I walk back home with my wife, and she said, oh, I wish I could have been part of that. I would have loved to share that pack with you. And she had been a heavy smoker herself earlier. And I didn't want that responsibility. I didn't want her to feel like she should be part of this sort of orgy of smoke.

MCEVERS: (Laughter).

HENS: And so I decided, OK, you know what? This is it. I'm going to quit. I threw out all the ashtrays¹⁰ and lighters¹¹ and cigarette packs and opened all the windows, and that was it.

MCEVERS: That was your LC, and you didn't even know it.

HENS: That was my LC - my LLC.

MCEVERS: (Laughter) Gregor Hens is a writer based in Berlin. His book, which is out now in the U.S., is called "Nicotine." Thank you so much for joining us.

HENS: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE STRANGE BOYS SONG, "BE BRAVE")

1 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

2 nicotine   

n.(化)尼古丁，烟碱

参考例句：

• Many smokers who are chemically addicted to nicotine cannot cut down easily.许多有尼古丁瘾的抽烟人不容易把烟戒掉。
• Many smokers who are chemically addicted to nicotine cannot cut down easily.许多有尼古丁瘾的抽烟人不容易把烟戒掉。

3 withdrawal   

n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销

参考例句：

• The police were forced to make a tactical withdrawal.警方被迫进行战术撤退。
• They insisted upon a withdrawal of the statement and a public apology.他们坚持要收回那些话并公开道歉。

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 smoker   

n.吸烟者，吸烟车厢，吸烟室

参考例句：

• His wife dislikes him to be a smoker.他妻子不喜欢他当烟民。
• He is a moderate smoker.他是一个有节制的烟民。

6 lighter   

n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级

参考例句：

• The portrait was touched up so as to make it lighter.这张画经过润色，色调明朗了一些。
• The lighter works off the car battery.引燃器利用汽车蓄电池打火。

7 skeptic   

n.怀疑者，怀疑论者，无神论者

参考例句：

• She is a skeptic about the dangers of global warming.她是全球变暖危险的怀疑论者。
• How am I going to convince this skeptic that she should attention to my research?我将如何使怀疑论者确信她应该关注我的研究呢？

8 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

9 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

10 ashtrays   

烟灰缸( ashtray的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A simple question: why are there ashtrays in a no-smoking restaurant? 问题是：一个禁止吸烟的餐厅为什么会有烟灰缸呢？
• Avoid temptation by throwing away all cigarettes, lighters and ashtrays. 把所有的香烟，打火机，和烟灰缸扔掉以避免引诱。

11 lighters   

n.打火机，点火器( lighter的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The cargo is being discharged into lighters. 正在往驳船里卸货。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Babies'bootees and cheap cigarette lighters were displayed in unlikely juxtaposition. 儿童的短靴和廉价的打火机很不相称地陈列在一起。 来自辞典例句