Violet Sheridan has been a Health worker at Winnunga Nimmityjah, an Aboriginal Health Service in the ACT working within substance abuse project. She has also smoked for most of her teenage and adult years. Seeing her mother-in-law struggle with the effects of emphysema and similarly experiencing trouble with her own breathing, she decided to take advantage of the 'No More Bundah' Program offered at The Winnunga Nimmityjah Health Centre. 'No More Bundah' is an 8 week Quit program run by Winnunga which promotes smoking cessation through the use of counselling and group meetings together with the supply of 2 weeks of free Nicotine replacement therapy.

Violet felt that the initial support of the Nicotine patches was what made the difference this time in giving up smoking. Her body no longer craved the nicotine in cigarettes, which in turn made it easier to change her impulse to reach for a cigarette out of habit. "When I felt like I wanted a cigarette I new it wasn't my body needing the cigarette it was just my mind. So I'd tell myself to wait a couple of minutes or go and have a glass of water and the urge would have gone". It is this change in her behaviour around smoking that Violet feels is the key to her successfully giving up. Even though she is with people who smoke all the time she is able to modify what she does when the urge strikes.

Even when she no longer attended the support groups, she was able to apply the skills she had learned to get through those times when temptation or simple habit would have weakened her resolve.

Now Violet is feeling the benefits of being smoke free for 10 months. Her sense of smell and taste has returned and her energy level has increased so that she is now able to go for long walks. Her doctor has told her that the heavy cough she has as a result of 37 years of smoking will take a little longer to clear but her breathing has improved remarkably.

Asked what she would say to anyone considering giving up smoking she said "Have a go and just don't give up hope. It's the hardest thing I've ever done and it took me 20 attempts but I did it with the help I got through 'No More Bundah'. All my friends and family are really proud of me.

Quitting smoking is a tough job and not every attempt will be a successful one. The arrival of Karen West’s newest grandson Tarnah has made this grandmother rethink her smoking habit. Karen is from the Kalkadoon mob near Mt Isa and although not a heavy smoker, she has smoked about 15 cigarettes a day for nearly 40 years.

Karen has tried once before to quit and managed to cut her smoking down to 2 cigarettes a day using the support of Zyban. “It was really easy and I didn’t feel like I needed anymore than those 2 a day”. While Zyban helped her with her cravings her first attempt at quitting was short term. She can’t recall what it was exactly that lead to her smoking again but remembers feeling that once she had started she might as well keep going. Apart from the Zyban she didn’t use any other strategies to support her quitting attempt and doesn’t know if this would have made any difference.

Asked what impact smoking has had on her health, Karen feels that her fitness has been affected by breathlessness and she suffers from high blood pressure. She realises that if she can give up smoking, her fitness and blood pressure would improve.

It is the impact her smoking has on those around her that are her primary concern. While she doesn’t smoke around her grandchildren she would like to be a non smoking role model to them as well. Her daughter would be Karen’s biggest supporter should she make another quitting attempt and has strictly enforced the no smoking rule around baby Tarnah.

Although Karen does not have a particular quitting strategy in mind as yet, she is beginning to think about how quitting would improve her life and the importance of having a good reason to motivate her in this difficult challenge. She doesn’t think that she will qualify to use Zyban again since she has already used it once before and will have to think about ways she can cope with the cravings she might feel both physically and behaviourally.

We thank Karen for sharing her story and wish her luck and encouragement in making the next step along the road to quitting. We at the CEITC would love to hear other quitting stories from community members, whether you are thinking about quitting, currently quitting, have successfully quit or are helping others to quit.

As a crisis support worker for the Kamunga Aboriginal Health Service working with young homeless people and those in other critical situations, Margie Jackson could have plenty of excuses for continuing to smoke. But after smoking 70 plus cigarettes a day for 26 years, Margie’s body was telling her that it was time to give up.

Margie first took up smoking after the birth of her daughter as a way of coping with postnatal depression. She thought that smoking would be a better way of dealing with the depression than taking medication. Over the years, Margie made many a new year’s resolution to quit smoking but they were always short lived. Wednesday the 18th February 2004, though, was different. After suffering from chest infection after chest infection every winter, Margie finally decided to quit.

Margie felt the key to success in this quitting attempt was both her strong commitment to doing so, and a sense that the time had come to face up to the damage that smoking was doing both to her health and to her wallet. She was staggered to find that she had smoked her way through $6000 worth of cigarettes every year. But it was watching her mother die of a smoking-related illness that finally forced Margie to realise the damage that smoking could do.

After briefly trying nicotine patches and finding that they did not suit her, Margie was able to quit cold turkey. Support from friends, family and work colleagues were an important part of the quitting process. She found that the smokers around her gave her a lot of encouragement and would avoid smoking in her presence. Her partner at the time, out of consideration for Margie, took to smoking outside the house; he soon followed her lead and gave up himself. This positive feedback gave her both a sense of pride in what she was doing and her self-esteem a real boost.

Margie says she cannot remember suffering from bad nicotine cravings; instead she focused on the positives she was experiencing from being smoke free. She found new joy in her favourite foods and perfumes once her sense of smell and taste quickly recovered. Her skin also felt smoother and her clothes no longer had the odour of tobacco smoke. While Margie did gain a bit of weight, she has since been able to lose most of it. This has been further helped by her increased fitness because of no longer suffering from regular bouts of bronchitis.

Margie feels that she encourages other smokers around her to quit—not through giving them a lecture but through leading by example. She likes to share her experience with friends and family in the hope that it will inspire them to quit too. Margie is to be congratulated on her success and we would like to thank her for sharing her story with us.