Stop smoking… you look ugly!

I am asking for a round of applause please… It’s been 3 years since my last cigarette!!

I had inherited the cigarette gene from my dad and his family. Back when I was a child, our family gatherings were usually spent in a cloud of cigarette smoke. My Dad is from a family of 6 children and all of them smoked. Add to that the husbands and wives and put them in France and you get a Gitane fest! Yuck, brown gitanes were the most disgusting things on earth and I would have rather gone naked into town than having a gitane. Now that shows you how disgusting they are because, God I was addicted!

I started smoking at 15 and my parents found out that when I was 16. Of course they had doubts; the smell was a pretty good give away…

So one day my sister and I were having one of our fights. Same as usual, probably because I wouldn’t lend her a jumper, because as usual she would either damage it, or lend it to a friend of hers and I would never get it back!

I remember the scene so well it was something like:

My sister: Lend it to me or I’ll tell Mum that you smoke!

Me: Yeah right you do that and I kill you and your hamster together!

My sister: touch my hamster and you are dead!

Me: Touch my jumper and YOU are dead!

My sister: So you really want me to tell mum you smoke?!

My mum: YOU SMOKE???!!!!

My dad: YOOOUUU SMOOOKKE??!!

My Grandmother: I knew she smoked…

Me to my sister: THAT’S IT YOU ARE DEAD!!!!

My mum to my Grandmother: I can’t believe you knew and you didn’t tell me!

Right I will leave you guess the rest of the story… It turned pretty ugly…

15 years following that event I was a heavy smoker… I left France to come to the UK and I won’t even tell you how many cigarettes a day I was on then, I am too ashamed!

So when I met Craig, a true non smoker, has never touched a cigarette in his life, has never looked at one, I can tell you that he must have really got under my charm straight away, because now that I am a non smoker, I wouldn’t imagine kissing someone who’s just had a fag.

He took me 3 attempts to finally succeed… The first one was a try on my own with the “Easy way to stop smoking” book. It worked!… for 3 weeks, then I thought I could have one with a glass of wine, with my mates, then I could have one after lunch one day, then that was it, back on it again.

A year later I tried again, with nicorettes… I thought I was dying when I had my first one. Don’t do like me, read the leaflet, they are not gums!

I started chewing away, and then my heart started palpitating… I was at work and my colleague looked at me and said “please don’t tell me it is a Nicorette you are chewing like this!”… it was a Nicorette and I was dying! My head went whizzing away and my tongue was becoming numb! It took me ages to pick the next one, but I still wanted, needed, CRAVED FAGS!!! I was in a foul mood and would have bitten everyone’s head off, especially my boss (I would have done it at best of time so imagine in those circumstances…).

A few months later, Craig proposed. It was one of the best days of my life. We were in France in St Emilion with a beautiful setting and he went down on his knees. I thought he’d lost something on the floor but then he looked up at me and I saw the sparkle of the ring! I started crying and it started raining… To this day I haven’t forgotten how Craig looked nervous, and it really moved me…

So back from holiday, I started thinking of the big day and I suddenly realised that I could not wear a princess dress and smoke a cigarette at the same time! So I got extra motivated and did it this time! Call me shallow but I didn’t want any photo of my big day with me and a cigarette.

So with the help of the NHS program, I had a coach that I went to see every Monday. She was quite scary and just by fear of being told off I managed to stay really good. I have ever since and that was one of the best decisions of my life. This and saying “yes” to Craig…