Now she can book that dream holiday to New Zealand without worrying about cravings on a 20+ hour flight!
Helen, 53, started smoking when she was 18 years old. She had previously quit smoking for 8 years after losing her mother-in-law to a smoking related disease.
The pivotal turning point came when her daughters, now much older, expressed their anxieties about her smoking habit and pleaded with her to stop. Knowing how upset this made them, she knew she had to quit.
Regrettably, she was offered a cigarette one evening out and took to smoking again, she was going through a stressful period in her life at the time. She never thought she would become a smoker again and said constantly for 18 months that she would stop but this proved harder than expected.
Helen is a Livewell South West member of staff and she saw our stop smoking services advertised in a communications email. Ordinarily, our health improvement practitioners will arrange to visit Livewell staff members at work to offer face-to-face stop smoking support, but as Helen works from home, she decided to visit Vikki, one of our expert health improvement practitioners, at one of our clinics.
As Helen had previously quit smoking successfully with the aid of a nicotine inhalator, Vikki suggested giving vaping a go: “I was initially hesitant about vaping but I’m so pleased Vikki persuaded me to give it a try. It was perfect for me. I loved how it was so similar to smoking. It gave me something to do with my hands, something to inhale and I still go for ‘cigarette breaks’ but vape instead. I like the menthol flavour as when menthol cigarettes were available to buy I used to smoke those and it’s so similar. Vikki was lovely. It helped to talk through what was going on and any issues I was experiencing.”
As a bonus, Helen was delighted to experience benefits to her health: “That cough…that persistent, chronic cough has gone! Vikki also commented on how much healthier my skin looks too.”
Another significant gain from becoming smokefree is the money saved…and it’s a lot: “I was spending about £50 a week on smoking, that’s £200 a month! I’m now able to put a lot more money into my retirement savings.”
If you’ve got a taste for travel and you’re a smoker, Helen’s final point will really strike a chord…the dread of the long-haul flight! And it’s not just the flight itself, smoking inside airports is also highly restricted: “I’ve wanted to go to New Zealand for a while, but the thought of spending 20+ hours on a plane without a cigarette really put me off. When I managed to quit smoking again, I went for it and booked a holiday to New Zealand. I remember feeling so pleased that I wasn’t one of those stressed-out people craving a cigarette!”