ROSE HOLMES

I am 58 years old and have tried to give up smoking many, many times, I never gave up giving up and I did stop smoking 10 years ago, with the help of patches for 8 years,  I was then given a ciggie on my Saturday night out and this went on for weeks without me realising I was hooked again.  The stupid thing about it was the people who encouraged me to smoke again were trying to give up themselves and yet they kept pushing me to have a ciggie, what a fool I was.   I smoked for 3 years after that and I have lost count of the amount of times I tried giving up again, I would go for anything between 3 and 6  weeks not smoking but it was really hard but I did decide in my head that I would give them up by the New Year, which I did but then I had no option as I was very ill with my lungs, this was the final straw so I put the patch back on and I have not smoked since January 2009 and its now September 2009.  

I love not smoking and I love not smelling horrible.   I still kept craving for a ciggie for months and it felt there was something missing, I needed to quench my throat, then one day about four months ago I decided I didn't want to drink tea anymore and hey presto I didn’t feel the urge to have a ciggie,  I now drink cold water from the fridge.   I have not put any weight on and this could be because I used to have about 15 cups of tea a day and two sugars, so that’s 30 teaspoons of sugar a day, can you imagine how many  I must of had in a week. 

If I was to say to anyone trying to give up smoking I would say “Don't give up trying one day you will give up the ciggies, but you must really want to otherwise you will go back to smoking,  it’s not easy and you have to be strong”. 

Good luck to all who are trying to stop.