"I’m 41 and have been smoking since I was 14. I had been told many times in hospital that I should quit because of my chronic asthma. Every night I would need my Ventolin, wake up all night wheezing and finding it hard to breathe. My children would ask almost every day, ‘when will you quit?’ I would also think every day - why am I even doing this? When I smoke I feel drained, dirty, smelly, tired.

One day I downloaded the My QuitBuddy app and decided that was it. I needed to cold turkey it and go through the withdrawals. I was grumpy, and had this feeling of a lump in my chest for the first week, my head was screaming, ‘Have a smoke! Have a smoke!’, but once I got through day one I was thinking – ‘I’m never doing a day like that again’. Once I got through week 1 I was thinking I’m never ever doing that week again… Same with week 2, then it was 1 month and finally, one year.

I started at the gym after I quit and lost 20kg in that year, after a few months I no longer needed my Ventolin, I can walk my dogs without being out of breath, my skin went from looking dry and greyish looking to healthy with colour. I don’t have the drained all day feeling, I don’t feel dirty. I recently had a health scare which put me in hospital and I’m not sure my body would have been able to fight the fight if I was still gasping for air...Guess you could say quitting played a part in saving my life in more ways than one."