Karen's Story
By Make Smoking History
Karen used to think of smoking as being a big part of her social life. Whenever she tried to quit, she’d usually come unstuck by a friend offering her one. She’s now finding it easier to stop by surrounding herself with positive, like-minded people who don't smoke. Her message to smokers is to keep trying to quit until you find the way that works for you.
Explore our website for ways to quit, tips for keeping on track and the health benefits you can look forward to as soon as you quit.
Transcript of Karen’s video:
I think smoking is a very personal choice.
I don’t think anyone can totally talk you into quitting, you’ve got to be in the right
head space for it to work.
My mum got diagnosed with lung cancer, she’d been a heavy smoker all her life
and it was actually when she got diagnosed with secondaries to her brain that
I just went “I can’t, I don’t want my kids to go through this”.
So I just went “I’ve got to do it now, it’s now or never”.
I think smoking is a really social thing, so if you’re with a group of people that smoke you’ll probably find that the smokers that don’t normally smoke ever, will go “oh, go on give me one then, I haven’t had one for how many years?”.
It’s the spontaneous cigarettes that just appear I think, because you’re not expecting them and they’re the harder ones to turn down.
I’m not afraid to say to anyone, you know, “look I’m just quitting, can you not smoke around me? I really don’t want to go backwards”.
I know now, like it’s taken a long time, that I can’t be that person that has one cigarette here and there because I’ll just go straight back to it and I refuse to be that person anymore.
I tried many ways to quit, I’ve tried patches, all the medications, the inhalers, cold turkey.
This time I’ve gone patches and that’s working for me, yay!
I think my message to quitters is don’t give up, just keep trying to quit, you know.
You’ll come across a time where it’ll just all click into place and you’ll find it easy.
If you surround yourself with positive people and you surround yourself with
like-minded people who also don’t smoke, you can do it.
Just get out and enjoy the world and not have to think “when can I have that next cigarette”
you know, “this day is going forever, I want a cigarette”.
It’s just so much better, it really is.