To ask you for the thing that finally motivated you to stop smoking ...and did it work ?

[Yoyokitten]

My Dad, born in 1919, started smoking at 12 years old, was totally addicted and could not stop.
He died at 57 of a pulmonary embolism.
Far too young.No one else in my family smoked.
So when I listened to a programme on Radio 4 this week called Tobacco and Me, it got me thinking.
I went to college at 17,and everyone smoked, so being an idiot I tried it too.
Hated it ,felt sick and dizzy so instead of rejecting it I carried on until it became a habit.
The thing that stopped me smoking was that one night about 9.30pm, in the middle of winter I realised I was running out of cigarettes.
The nearest little shop was about half a mile away.
It was snowing, but I set off.Got to the shop slipping and sliding, bought them and set off back home.
On the way back I slipped sprained my ankle and fell and sat on the fags as I went down, crushing them.
I sat in the snow laughing and crying.
That stopped me, and I never smoked another one 🤣.

GP found a heart murmur a couple of years ago and I quit that day. It was the emotional scare that I needed and I’m creeping up to the age of my mum when she died during heart surgery, so …

Oh gosh, I didn't know it gave you heart murmurs!

I hated when I had to go out at 10pm to the petrol station because I needed them for the morning. Hated that feeling of muzzy head after the first one of the day. Didn't want to be pg and still smoke. So I cut down until one a day, then none ( the hardest bit). It took me six years! It's an addiction after all. Finally stopped just a few months before getting pg, 30 years ago!

But a few years later, I worked in a newsagents. I could often tell who was going to buy fags from their grey skin. Then one day a sales rep left me a sample of menthol cigs. They were just sitting there - what a temptation! I had to break them up and throw them away.

I am SO pleased I gave up. It's easier now, but I could maybe fall off the wagon if I'd been drinking, I think. Luckily there are never cigs around in pubs, and none of my friends smoke.

I started smoking at 18 when it was “cool”. I always struggled with life and relationships (was diagnosed with autism as an adult which I imagine is why) and I did find smoking “helped” me. I tried to quit loads in my 20s but couldn’t manage. I started vaping which I became even more addicted to. So I tried to stop that by mixing it up with smoking and quite honestly it became that I pretty much constantly had either a vape or cigarette in my mouth. I met my now husband in my 30s and when we decided we were serious and would like a family I decided to stop in preparation. I just…. Stopped. Went cold turkey for both cigarettes and vapes. It was bloody hard but I did it! Turns out we were never able to have children in the end but I’m staying stopped now anyway. Saying that, if, God forbid, I was to lose my husband, I think I’d take it up again.

Same!

I have been smoking for 32 years…and I didn’t think I could honestly stop. Was 30-40 per day and was very addicted. My best friend, my moment of quiet etc.
i have tried every which way over the years. Patches, Alan Carr x2, nicotine replacement, hypnotherapy, cold turkey…you name it.

but ultimately it came down to cost. I just could not afford it anymore! Broke my heart.

i used the NHS stop smoking service, and have taken up vaping…I know it isn’t better, but it is as I breathe easier now (COPD), blood pressure is lower and I can afford it.

honestly, give it a go…I never thought I would be able to quit. It’s been 7 months now.

I don’t know if this is motivation as such but I got flu one Christmas and was so sick for so long I hadn’t smoked for two weeks. I had been feeling guilty about squandering my health and money on it and I thought I’d be a fool to disregard such a gift so I stopped.

I did have to navigate the emotional struggle of living without it through good times and bad, but the penny dropped that if I started again I’d be back to square one. I had already had a few false starts and I was tired of failing! This was 21 years ago and I’m so glad to be free of it.

I just….got bored of it? I smoked for decades then one day decided….i don’t like it. Haven’t smoked since. No idea why and no way I could have stopped before that!

I got genital warts 😂 gave up 15 years ago and they never came back

I was diagnosed with lung cancer. That in itself you'd think would have done it for me. maybe, maybe not.

what really did it for me was having to tell my elderly frail mother that I might have been handed a death sentence because of my addiction. The look of fear on her face did it for me.

That, and the work of the thoracic and spinal surgeons who worked so hard to remove the tumour did the trick.

Every day (and it's been 16 years now)since then, I've felt that I've had life thanks to the three of them.

I tried before lockdown, tried loads of different ways but I just couldnt manage it. Then lockdown hit, I was furloughed and (as I smoked in my flat - so gross I know) I quickly went from 25 a day to around 40-50. My savings were gone by September 2020 as furlough was 75% wages.

I decided enough was enough and using champix I finally managed it. It was still so hard, and at first when drinking I used a 0% nicotine vape, it didnt give you the “hit” in the back of the throat, but it got me through, I havent even used a vape since I got pregnant and couldn’t drink, my little one is 4 now and I can drink without a vape, though it isnt very often!

I grew up in a smoking house, my parents still smoke and still smoke indoors, I visit once-twice a month as they moved to Sussex, and everything absolutely stinks when we get home, I cannot believe I used to smell like that, and my flat used to smell like that! Disgusting! Cant see myself ever going back, I worked so hard to quit.

6 weeks after having a multiple bone breaking accident where I was too poorly to smoke (but certainly thought about when I could start again) I ended up having significant bilateral pulmonary embolisms. I was on a ward with 5 other ladies in various stages of lung cancer. They all made me 'pinky promise' I'd never smoke again. I never have (9 yrs). I often think about all of them.

Started at 13 progressed onto 40a day at one point met DW 20yrs ago .
I've been stopped 19yrs as DW hated the smell also used zyban to help quit.

I got fed up with constantly worrying about it killing me - my dad died of lung cancer, aged 65 after smoking 40-60 a day since he was ten. I’m a solo mum and I was always worrying about leaving my kids orphans. I’d given up when I was pregnant and a couple of other times in my life but always gone back to it. This time I took Zyban. Just the smell of a fag now makes me gag. I never think about smoking, unless I’m talking about no longer smoking. I’ve not smoked for over a year now and I feel pretty confident I won’t smoke again. If anyone here has tried everything but not managed to give up, I thoroughly recommend Zyban.

Allen carr’s book. Stopped there and then, twenty years ago.

I loved smoking. Totally totally loved it. Even when I had a chest infection, even if I smoked too many I felt sick I still loved it. I smoked for 35 years, at least 20 a day. Then I got a blood clot in my leg, I couldn’t walk. Ran out of fags. Asked my partner to buy me some and he said no. He hated me smoking. I was house bound for about 6 weeks. Couldn’t get a delivery as we lived in an apartment with no lift and the delivery people wouldn’t come up the stairs. It was hard but I’d no choice. I couldn’t get any. When I was finally allowed out I was tempted to buy some but I didn’t. I sometimes still think I’d love a cigarette but then I think of the price, the smell and the ash all over you and that puts me off.

I work for a well known, large retailer and in 2005/06ish a lovely girl came to work at my branch as my management trainee. We were both in our mid 20's, clicked immediately, and developed a firm friendship in haze of the now condemned 'smoking room'.

Life took over, she had her first child, and left to work at a branch more local to her. We still kept in touch via text and social media.

As time went on it became obvious on social media that something was not quite right with her, although nothing was ever publicly disclosed or confirmed. I never reached out, which is something to this day I deeply regret.

To cut a long story short, she got her angel wings aged 37, the result of a brain tumor, leaving behind a husband and two very young sons. She was a year younger than me.

Her funeral was beautiful. The love in the room, her sons walking behind her coffin. In that moment I made the decision that I would stop smoking because, although her death was not smoking related, I had to do everything I could to keep myself healthy and present for as long as possible for my young children.

Her passing is still the one that had the most impact on me. She was so young, so loved, and I still feel immensely sad about it several years on.

I started smoking around 17, wasn’t really a serious smoker till earning decent salary at around 19/20. Gave up when I got pregnant at 24. I only occasionally smoked for 6 years - very rarely and then stopped fully for my second pregnancy.

Then just smoked just the odd night out (rare) Then Covid hit and work for both husband and I ramped up WFH and trying to homeschool or entertain 2 children we both started smoking - both regretted it as the occasional ciggy become a habit! Husband gave up fully now for 3 years, he did the patches and gum etc and me cold turkey for 6 months.

No social smoking, and thankfully I never smoked at work so no habit to break there. It was the first one in the morning with a coffee and the one after work - I really really miss them!

Yes - I was a hard core smoker from age 16. I thought I’d never give up until I read that book. It really changed my attitude and made me feel in control as opposed to smoking controlling me.

A soppy one but I started seeing the most amazing bloke I'd ever met, he was a non-smoker and I didn't want my smoking to put him off, so I quit after 10+ years and many previous failed attempts. Of course he's been my husband for many years now (and he's still fucking ace!)

Fear of lung cancer. Members of my family had died young. Simple as. Also smell, feeling dependent, cost etc

Getting pregnant….in 1990

I'm just following this for some inspiration. You are all amazing and I wish I had your strength.

I stopped and started smoking twice a year but always started again - Christmas and summer holidays. Then one year I was back smoking and working with a respiratory nurse on a COPD business case. I was finding out about the illness so I could write the case. She explained to me that your lungs degenerate anyway over your lifetime, but smoking expedites the process. She said your lungs never recover from the damage done by smoking, particularly the long cough that I always got after a cold. She said if you're lucky your lungs can last a lifetime but for some people they only make it to late 50s. Soon after that I got the cough to end all coughs, I was wetting myself after long uncontrollable coughing episodes. I realised in no uncertain terms that this was me, as smoking had always had a very severe impact on me, compared to other smokers.

I switched to vaping. I became so addicted to vaping that I was having the equivalent of about 300 cigarettes per day. I was waking up in the night to vape. Then it started to get more difficult to breathe, and I was gradually becoming lightheaded over a number of months. I got another cough and was frequently short of breath. I finally realised the game was up. When I quit the nicotine this time, it was extreme. The dosage I had been on must have been huge, because when I came off, it felt mind bending, like I was actually going insane. The mental pain was like nothing I've ever experienced before or since. I was 39 years old when I had my last cigarette, and 41 when I had my last vape.

I have a very addictive personality, and I never judge. I know that in a way I was lucky to hit the wall so young, because I would never have given up unless I was forced to.

I honestly think some people don’t realise how addictive vaping is. I know it’s deemed “healthier” than smoking but because you can almost do it “anywhere” compared to smoking people use it like a dummy. It’s constantly in their hand and they puff away without even realising. I had a patient at work the other day come into my surgery holding one. Half way through talking she raised it to her mouth to puff at it. She did notice and quickly dropped it back down. But it’s such a habit in some people they even go to do it during medical appointments! Not even a hardened smoker would have gone to light up in the past decade since the ban. Even my mother who was a 30 a day smoker got used to going outside very quickly. (Although she did moan about it a LOT).

Those people I know who vape it’s literally like they have a dummy they’re reliant on!