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• BROOKER: Warning: giving up smoking can seriously damage your health 

But. There was a "but". A week after my "quit date", I was at home, watching a film with a friend. As the credits rolled, a frantic, nameless dread washed over me. Within minutes, I was a quivering wreck. My mind was drifting away from reality, tethered only by a narrow thread that might snap at any moment. Heart pounding, palms sweating. I clutched my head, blinking, hyperventilating, nerves jangling at 9,000 rpm.

It was a major panic attack, which eventually lasted over four hours, deep into the night. I've never known such terror. I became obsessed with the notion that I might snap at any moment; attack my friend, leap from a window, gouge my own eyes out with my thumbs, screaming, shrieking; a banshee. I've had better evenings in.

The next day I decided I'd had enough of that for one lifetime. I threw the pills away. Thing is, it takes days to clear your system. For a week, I walked around like a de-tuned radio, continually anxious, fighting insane paranoid notions; a horrified alien visitor on a tour of my own life. I was terrified it was permanent; slowly, normality returned.

Weeks later, I still can't believe I was legally prescribed something that could bend my brain over its knee with such demented zeal - although it's worth pointing out I have no evidence that what happened to me had anything to do with Zyban. All I know is it happened while I was taking the drug, and stopped several days after I binned the pills. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe I'm just crazy. I don't know. I do know, however, that pharmaceutical companies have ominous legal departments orbiting the planet in almighty Death Stars, and that a lawyer twice as powerful as God is doubtless reading this right now.

Anyway. Smoking kills, and I'm glad I've stopped. Quitting's worth it. Just don't choose a cure worse than death.

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