Your Stories

Friday 17th September, 2009: This is it, folks!

Eight weeks or 56 days or even 1,344 hours - whichever way I look at it, I've not smoked for quite a while. In fact, this is the longest I've ever been without a fag since I started 26 years ago.

According to my calculations I should be £308 better off, although my wallet remains resolutely empty!!

One other strange thing is that my gums have started bleeding when I brush my teeth. Apparently it's quite common amongst quitting smokers and is something to do with the higher oxygenated blood flow returning to the gums and healing them.

I'm still loving chocolate and humbugs are good too, although I need to watch how much coffee and wine I drink. Well, I've got to have some vices haven't I?!

So that's it I think, no going back. I am a non smoker and it's great.

If you're thinking of stopping too, then please remember it really does take will power - you have got to want to succeed. The human mind can be very persuasive and it's like having the devil on one side and an angel on the other when the cravings come.

They do pass though and the longer you've quit the shorter the cravings become. If you do decide to quit, do it for yourself and take advantage of all the help that's out there.

Thanks for reading!

Will

*There are two main smoking cessation drugs used in the UK:  Varenicline and Bupropion which are only available by prescription

Wednesday 19th August, 2009: Day 25

I've just done a quick bit of totting up. Twenty five full days since I quit smoking - not bad eh??

That means I've not smoked 500 fags and saved myself £140 already. Actually, I'm starting to wonder how on earth I could afford to smoke in the first place.

So all is good although I do find I've got some strange things going on. It's odd, one minute I don't notice the smell of a cigarette, the next I think "Mmm, that smells nice" and the next time I think cigarette smoke is disgusting. On top of that I think the tablets I'm on have made me slightly more irritable - although you'd have to ask my colleagues for the truth on that!

I went for my check-up at the clinic last week and had to do a carbon monoxide test again. If you remember when I first went and was still smoking, the reading was 34, this time it was 3. The interesting thing was it should have been 1 but because I had been driving in heavy traffic I had inhaled carbon monoxide from traffic fumes - scary stuff.

Oh, and despite rediscovering the joys of chocolate I've lost weight and my blood pressure is down.

I'm not complacent, but I do feel like this time I might just have quit for good.

Until next time...

Tuesday 28th July, 2009: Day 13

Hello! I thought I'd give you an update on how my attempt to stop smoking is going. So, after ten days of taking my tablets, I reached my quit day on Saturday. I felt quite apprehensive and unsure how I was going to get through the day, let alone the rest of my life. Time for one last fag then. As it wasn't raining (for a change), I went and sat by the pond and pondered(!) as I smoked the last cigarette of my life. To be honest I didn't really enjoy it that much anyway.

Now I've been smoke free for 72 hours and already my sense of smell has improved beyond belief although I'm not sure if my food tastes any better. I have discovered that I've gone right off instant coffee though!!

The downside is that my sleep patterns have been really messed up. On Sunday night I scarcely managed to sleep at all, but I don't know if that's down to the tablets or nicotine withdrawal though.

So do I feel better? Yes I do and I almost feel like it's giving me the opportunity to change my life in other positive ways too.

It's still early days, but I think it's going to be ok and I'd love to hear from you if you've also tried to stop.

Until next time.....

Thursday 16th July, 2009: Day One

So, after 26 years as a committed smoker, I have today, taken the first step on my (hopefully) final journey to being a non smoker. I say 'hopefully' because I've tried to quit before with varying degrees of success and ultimately I've always ended up giving in to the dreaded weed!

So what's different this time? I think it's a realisation that I've been smoking a long time and the odds are increasing that my health is going to start suffering.

I was 15 when I started smoking properly and now at nearly 42, that means I've been puffing my way through fags for 26 years! As I type this I'm just trying to work out how much money I've wasted and how many hundreds of thousands of drags on a fag that is??

This time round I'm taking a smoking cessation drug and this morning I took my first tablet. The best bit is I'm still allowed to smoke - for now at least!

Anyway, I'm going to update these pages regularly over the next 12 weeks so do drop by to see how I get on.

Wish me luck, I think I'll need it.

Listen - it's official now!

There's no turning back now for Will - he's gone on the record right here about his intention to quit, and he's even been shouting about it on the radio. Listen to Will talking to Antonia Brickell on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire's Drivetime show, plus there's some jolly useful words of wisdom from Clare Meed, from NHS Camquit.

Want to quit too?

There's lots of help and advice out there if, like Will, you want to stub it out for good. Here's just a selection of websites that have been set up to help you achieve that goal: