Patti Smith on quitting bad habits

SMITH: I used to drink like 14 cups a day. I was a pretty speedy person, but I never noticed. Then, when I was pregnant, I had to give up coffee. After that, I cut down to five or six cups. Ever since I hit 60, I drink only two. What I do is I get an Americano and a pot of water and I keep diluting it, because it’s not even the coffee, it’s the habit.

BOLLEN: That’s my problem. I really don’t smoke cigarettes that much except when I write. But when I write, I smoke. It’s bad, but I’m scared that if I break the habit, I won’t be able to write.

SMITH: It’s part of your process. It’s what you have to do. I’ll tell you how to break it. You don’t have to. Like, coffee was part of my process. Now, if I want to go to a café and write and drink coffee for two hours, I just order them. I don’t drink them. A lot is just aesthetic. So you light your cigarette and let it sit there and don’t smoke it.

BOLLEN: Do you think that would work?

SMITH: If you attach anything harmful to the creative process, you have to do that. If you learn nothing else from me, this is a really important lesson. I’ve seen a lot of people go down because they attach a substance to their creative process. A lot of it is purely habitual. They don’t need it, but they think they do, so it becomes entrenched. Like, I can’t go without my coffee. I can go without drinking it, but I can’t go without it nearby. It’s the feeling of how cool I feel with my coffee. Because I don’t feel cool with this tea. [Bollen laughs]

You know, there are pictures of me with cigarettes in the ’70s, and everybody thought I smoked. I can’t smoke because I had TB when I was a kid. But I loved the look of smoking—like Bette Davis and Jeanne Moreau. So I would have cigarettes and just light ’em and take a couple puffs, but mostly hold them. Some people said that was hypocritical. But in my world, it wasn’t hypocritical at all. I wasn’t interested in actually smoking them. I just liked holding them to look cool. All right, was it a bad image to show people? I’m happy to let people know I wasn’t really smoking.

source: interview magazine