Elena Ferrante: ‘Writing while smoking was a deceptive pleasure’

Cigarettes, alcohol and cocaine give users the illusion of coping with reality better

The only dependency I’m familiar with is tobacco: I started smoking when I was 12. I was curious about taking other drugs, but not tempted. I wanted to write, and it didn’t seem that doing so under the influence of alcohol or other narcotics could help: I was afraid of losing myself. Of course, quite a number of writers have obtained great results thanks to whisky or other substances, and my fear of letting go depressed me. What sort of writer could I be, if I didn’t use substances that would disrupt me?

But in fact I already had my stimulant: tobacco combined with a lot of coffee. How much caffeine, how much nicotine I’ve absorbed over time. I stopped drinking coffee, but for decades there was nothing in my existence that wasn’t accompanied by a cigarette. Pure joy for me was writing while smoking, smoking while writing. I knew it was a deceptive joy, I knew I should stop, I knew I was hurting myself and others. And at regular intervals I’d try to break out of that bondage; I’d proclaim it from the rooftops. But then I’d start up again, in secret – a clandestine passion that has more power than most, precisely because it’s clandestine.

Related: Elena Ferrante: ‘A woman friend is as rare as a true love’

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