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Giving up smoking

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Giving up smoking - site preview

Giving up smoking - site preview

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Raf

It felt, it didn’t feel odd or weird as such, it was just a case of not knowing how to smoke, but just lighting up and just trying it for that first time. And I enjoyed it, if I be honest with you.  And after that basically it just led on from there and there.

Andy

I suddenly found myself three or four years later, still smoking, and obviously completely addicted by that stage, as I probably was after about two weeks. And it was, I don’t know, it actually became quite a big part of our group ethic. A lot of what we did when we were teenagers.

Sue

and I think a lot of the time as well you smoke and you don’t want to, you actually get to the stage where you will smoke and you’re thinking why am I doing this?  This is going to be the last one, and then five minutes later you find that you’ve lit another one.

Laura

It wasn’t a big deal thing. People, no I didn’t walk around going I’ve given up smoking. I didn’t do any of that. No symbolic thing, thing with people watching. It was just literally a case of, “Aren’t you smoking Laura?” “No, I’ve stopped.”

Munir

So, she gave me some medicine, some tablets. And she gave me, I think it was, a 14 day course I think. Within about the 5th or 6th day I just couldn’t smoke. I just couldn’t smoke and went back to her, “I feel sick, I feel, you know, I can’t sleep at night. I’m having all these problems”. And she says, “Just hang on in there. Just hang on.”  She, she supported me a lot.

Caroline

Its, I’ve got grandchildren, so it’s quite nice. I haven’t got to worry about having a full load of mints before they come, and I can cuddle then knowing that I’m not making them smell of smoke. Which is actually quite important to me, although I didn’t realise how much I smelt until I stopped smoking, and I now smell it on other people.

Carol

You can’t have that first cigarette, and as long as you understand that, that you must never have that first cigarette, I think you’ll always stop smoking.

And I now know that, as much as I sometimes thing, oh I’d love a cigarette, I know I must never have that first cigarette, because I’ll be straight back, because the little, the little goblins that go all through your head will say, you know, let’s go.

We have interviewed 34 people about their experiences of giving up smoking; some found it easy to give up while others struggled over a number of years.  

We have grouped video and audio extracts from their interviews under 22 topic headings (see below and left) which include all of the different experiences in the interviews.
 

This section is from research by the University of Oxford.

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This is a summary of independent research funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) under its Programme Grants for Applied Research funding scheme (RP-PG-0608-10147). The views expressed are those of the authors, and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.


Publication date: March 2015
Last updated: August 2018

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