I was thrilled when I was approached about this project! To help inspire someone to quit – via wearable art – was an opportunity I couldn’t ignore.
Yes, I used to smoke.

At the peak of my smoking career, I smoked a packet or more a day. Although my parents smoked, I didn’t take up the habit until the year after I left school and went to uni. Then I worked in hospitality with long hours, irregular meal breaks and an environment where most people did smoke.

Smoking started to symbolise stuff: Like the end-of-shift smoke, the after-dinner ciggy, the last puff before you went into work, and the cigarette you squeezed into a quick break.

Imagine walking down the road on your way to work, and behind you lurks a shadowy figure.

The figure draws closer, sneaks her hand into your bag, takes money from your wallet and whispers instructions in your ear. Then she fades away, smug in the knowledge that you’ll pass her again on the way home.

That’s what smoking came to represent to me – someone else controlling me. Add to that the financial drain and the feeling of being addicted to something... I knew I had to stop! I had better things to do with my time and my money!

The turning point for me was one night when I was having my after dinner cigarette and I looked in the packet and realised there was only one left. All of a sudden, panic struck me as I had to work out how to get more smokes for the morning. Do I go out now, even though I’m already in my PJs, or do I do an early-morning dash?

Then it dawned on me how crazy it was that cigarettes – things that were doing me no good – were putting me into such a state. That’s when I realised I had to give them up.

I invented my own quit strategy. Every time I felt like a cigarette at work, I’d go and brush my teeth instead. It gave me a break from my desk (I had a desk job by then) and left me feeling refreshed instead of sour-mouthed. Then the next time the urge struck, I’d go and fill up a water jug and return to my desk and drink as much water as I could – visualising the water cleaning my body, not polluting.

Of course, I smoked here and there. There were some times and some friends who made it really hard.

But I didn’t worry too much if I lapsed. I just figured that if I hadn’t had a cigarette for four hours or four days, that next time I’d make it just a bit longer.

Then I was diagnosed with cancer. My doctor told me he thought smoking and this type of cancer were linked and that if I hadn’t quit, I should. The cancer didn’t make me stop – hating the lack of control did. But it certainly was incentive.

The urges still strike me now, seven years later. But instead of lusting for a cigarette for an hour, I think about it for a split second and then the urge is gone. I’ve had one or two in the last few years… at times of absolute crisis. So I guess that urge takes a very long time to subside. But what I do know now is even if I do light up, one drag is as far as I can get before my eyes and head hurt and I stub it out.

I consider that now I am a non-smoker. Not necessarily an ex-smoker. Just someone who chooses not to smoke.