Smoking kills - but try telling that to teenagers who think it's cool. STEPHEN LEWIS speaks to one smoker who wishes she could stop
IF THERE is one thing June Beveridge would love to do, it is turn back the clock to when she was 14. Not because she wants to live her life over again. Simply so she could shake her young self by the shoulders and say: "Stop".
June (it's not her real name) was 14 when she began smoking. Lighting up was seen as 'cool' and there was, she says, a lot of pressure from friends and classmates to try it.
Oddly, she says, the fact that she suffered from asthma only made her prouder at being able to smoke like them."I used to think, God, yeah, look at me," she says. "I used to think if I've got asthma and I can smoke, I must have good lungs!"
Now, in York District Hospital for the second time in two years following a life-threatening asthma attack, she's paying the cost.
At 51, she breathes with real difficulty, wheezing and labouring to draw breath as we talk. The first time she was rushed into hospital, she says, was a year ago.
"It was pretty horrendous. It's a frightening illness, like trying to breathe through chewing gum. You feel you are going to die. You come into hospital with the lights flashing, and you think; God, I will never smoke again."
Except that she did. She gave up for five months following that first fright - but the craving got the better of her and now she's back in hospital.
Jaynie Pateraki, sister of Ward 34 at York District Hospital where people with serious lung and chest conditions are treated, has seen countless people come and go with smoking-related illnesses - emphysema, bronchitis, throat and lung cancer, heart disease.
The people Jaynie is really worried about are teenagers. Statistics show that almost all smokers were hooked on tobacco as adolescents. In Great Britain alone, almost 450 children start smoking every day.
What Jaynie really wishes is that she could reach out to these young people and somehow convince them that it's not clever or cool to smoke.
"If they could see themselves a few years down the line, what their quality of life would be like, I think that would help," she says. "Young people think they can smoke and they will get away with it. But smoking is an insidious addiction that creeps up on them, and before they know it their lifestyle is really, really inhibited."
If you are a smoker and you are determined to give up, there is plenty of help available. Your GP will be able to advise on local smoking cessation co-ordinators. The Department of Health is launching a 'kiss it goodbye' campaign to mark No Smoking Day this Wednesday. If you really want to give up smoking, it says, it takes planning and determination.
But here is how you can prepare:
u Name the day when you're going to stop. Use the time until then to plan.
u Ask your GP or pharmacist if any drug treatments will suit you.
u Find out if there is a stop smoking clinic in your area and check it out.
u Get the support of friends and family.
u Keep a diary noting when and where you smoke, and how it makes you feel.
u Use your diary to plot the 'smoky situations' in your day - and work out how to avoid them.
u Plan some treats with your savings.
u Keep a helpline number handy - and use it!
The NHS Smoking Helpline, which is open from 10am to 11pm daily, is on 0800 169 0169.
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