“My parents were smokers, and my father’s parents were smokers, so it sort of it gets sort of handed down through generations, so if you can break that cycle…My partner’s pregnant as well, and I don’t want to pass that onto my child if that’s possible.

…I separated myself from smokers, that’s what I had to do… My circle of friends, they smoke and they go, ‘do you want one?’ even though they know you’re not smoking. There’s been times that I’ve taken one and started smoking it, without even realising.”

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Smoking was everywhere when I grew up as a child. We were in the back of the car, our parents smoked in the car, you know, with the windows down this far with it raining and Mum’s got all the perfume on and you’ve got smoke in there. It actually made me really sick – I got really car sick from the perfume and all the smoke in the car as a child, you know?

From the age of 15 I pretty much smoked. I had to get a letter from my father to go to school because I always used to get caught with cigarettes and they knew I smoked, so there was nothing they could do about it to stop it.

My parents were smokers, and my father’s parents were smokers, so it sort of it gets sort of handed down through generations, so if you can break that cycle…I think it’s important not to smoke around children, not to have them in that environment. My partner’s pregnant as well, and I don’t want to pass that onto my child if that’s possible.

This is the longest period I’ve been through in my life without cigarettes. I think I’ll be able to sustain that now, I’m not addicted to smoking anymore. It’s just the association in my mind but I know that I’m not addicted to nicotine and I’m happy about that, you know?

I separated myself from smokers, that’s what I had to do. As soon as I’m near a smoker, or I’m with smokers, sitting with a group of smokers I want to smoke. Just sitting there and being in that environment is quite difficult and sitting there with other smokers and not smoking - you want, you want a smoke, you know? ‘They’re all smoking, I need a smoke!’  Your head just keeps like screaming at you ‘I need a smoke, have a smoke!’

It’s the secondhand smoke too, it’s the passive smoking, you know? I don’t enjoy that. If I’m not smoking I don’t want to be sitting in a car or sitting next to somebody that’s smoking as well because I might as well be smoking, you know, I’m still breathing it in. My circle of friends, they smoke and they go, ‘do you want one?’ like that, even though they know you’re not smoking. There’s been times that I’ve taken one and started smoking it, without even realising…‘do you want one?’ and just gone like that and it’s a normal, you know, that pattern. Just grab it and light it up and then think, ‘what am I doing?’

My personal message would be ‘if you love me don’t smoke around me, it’s killing us.’