Christine’s story

Seeing her mum struggle with emphysema was Christine’s motivation to quit. She was scared for her mum and what her own life would be like if she kept smoking. Her mum had a health scare and ‘seeing her more or less lifeless, no energy scared the crap out of me’

Christine used to smoke 12-15 a day, spending around $46 for a pack of 40’s.

According to the My QuitBuddy app, which Christine is using to follow her quit progress, she had been smoke-free for 130 days, 2 hours and 58 minutes when we had a chat with her. She had saved thousands of dollars, avoided a lot of tar in her lungs and has a lapse free status . She looks at the app all the time on her phone to remind herself of why she no longer smokes. She also used the games on it to distract herself from cravings. Checking her status and doing the games became her new habit. It convinced her what she was doing was working. In one of their conversations, Wendy, a Quitline counsellor, had told her how to use the app and all the things she could do on it to help with her quitting.

Here are some other things Christine wanted to share:

• Wouldn’t have given up now if the doctor hadn’t given me the referral
• You can only do it when you’re ready and I said ‘yep, let’s do it’
• Got to be in the mindset, gotta be ready. I’ve always wanted to.
• I thought it (Quitline) was for when you’d already slipped up, didn’t realise it was ongoing
• Great support. Don’t know how they put up with me
• I started looking forward to the message reminders
• Knowing if you slip up you’re not going to be judged. You will be supported through that
• I’d always had a smoke with an energy drink. Energy drinks and smokes just went together. Took me a whole day to think about, to work out not to do them together. I had to cut them down so they weren’t a trigger
• Trigger is old memories such as what I did after shopping – I’d have a smoke. Now I have to wait for my husband too and it’s such a waste of time
• Don’t realise how different your smell is – I’m gagging on petrol now. It smacks you in the face
• My hands don’t smell any more
• Helps to be around someone who doesn’t smoke
• Not coughing my guts up every night. I can lay there without coughing. No horrible taste in my mouth. I have smell and taste now – different to what it was
• My husband sill smokes – he stinks!
• Yep, I’ve told everyone about Quit. It worked. They give you great support

*Results may vary from person to person

Photo: Successful Quitter, Christine with Wendy (Quitline counsellor)