An orange email has landed in my box. "Hello Tanya Gold!" it screams. "Your Quit Date is: Thursday, April 07, 2005 at 7:00:00am." It rants on: "You will start saving £1,916.25/year! Don't quit alone." My head sinks into the bedding. Yes - it is a missive from Quitnet. How did it come to this?

I remember the night I signed up to Quitnet; the clouds massed low over Cricklewood; occasionally, a shard of moonlight penetrated the darkness. My mouth tasted of Silk Cut, loss and Minstrels. And, as the clouds parted and the madness of the Cricklewood moon blazed on to my brow, I logged on to Quitnet, ignored its orangeness, and, in a Nietzschean act of despair, I set a quit date.

I forgot Quitnet, but it remembered me. It invades, seeking; it wants me to write My Profile: to befriend the quitting Buddies; to participate in Forums and Q-Clubs and Chat; to master Q-Mail; to memorise My Quitting Guide; to tell them Why I Smoke; to explain How Addicted Am I; to stop smoking in 23 days and to buy a (Quitting) mug.

I have a tip and a testimonial: "You'd have to gain at least 75 pounds to cause as much danger to yourself as a one-pack-a-day habit," says the tip. "Some people actually become thinner." I will become thinner. I will become thinner when I have lung cancer. I will drag my drip towards the scales, peer down and cry, "I'm eight stone!" Then I will die. The testimonial orders me, "to look inside yourself; that's where you'll find the strength." I look in the mirror and like a sullen but literate hippo, open my mouth and inspect. I cannot see my strength. All I can see is my teeth. They are yellow.

What will Quitnet do if I am still smoking on Thursday, April 07, 2005 at 7:00:03? It knows where I live. Will it invade my bedroom and kill me? Will it decant my lungs and photograph them, to post on the site as a warning to other faithless quitters? I wish it would go away. I feel like Max Bialystock in The Producers, saying, as his life falls into dust: "Please. Don't help me."