A year ago, life without cigarettes felt unimaginable and totally unappealing; so, if you’re going through the same struggle, here’s a few things that made the impossible, possible –

Step 1: Making the decision.

The fact that smoking was ruining my teeth made step 1 a little easier for me.

It helps to have a tangible reason to stop.

The financial incentive didn’t do it and I didn’t have any emotional guns pointing at my head; but, the mental image of a toothless grin still makes me stomach turn. Plus, the idea of being a smoking 70 year old didn’t hold much appeal -

You can’t wait for an addiction to disappear: it just gets a little harder to shift.

Step 2: A strategy.

I am not great at planning, but there are a few basic steps that made the transition from decision to reality a little easier:

1. Read Allen Carr. I’m not sure that I buy into the Allen Carr method, but he certainly psyches you up. Any lingering doubts that threatened to undermine my resolve were swiftly abandoned with a few words of inspired clarity.

2. Fix a date. December 28^th is not a logical date for stopping smoking. December 31^st would be a little more conventional and far neater; but, when you’re breaking habits, the more time you have to interrupt the routine before everything else goes back to normal, the better.

December 28^thwas the latest post Christmas date that still left me with a few days leeway before normality crashed in. It was also the date where I could stay the night someone else, which is number 3 –

3. Change the scenery. If you smoke at home, the associations are pretty strong and it’s hard to avoid the reminders of what you’re missing. In the days leading up to the 28^th, I gradually took my smoking outside; and, on the 28^th, I abandoned ship for a few days, leaving behind bowls of potpourri and some safety-latched open windows.

This made it easier, as did the sense of responsibility that I felt to the people who were kind enough to provide me with smoke-free accommodation –

4. Tell people. Doing things out of obligation never really worked for me; but, doing things with other people’s support is important. Ignoring the little voice that told me just how many people’s expectations I’d be letting down when my attempts to quit failed, I set myself a sneaky trap by telling as many people as possible – and then remembering just how supportive they were being when the temptation got particularly high.

5. No other expectations. Giving up smoking is tough. I blanked out a few calendar days and gave myself a bit of a break.

6. Write it down. Before I started, I wrote down the three reasons I was giving up smoking. No elaborate explanations or lengthy logics; just the main motivations: teeth; freedom; now or never. These were a godsend when I started to forget what I was hoping to achieve.

Step 3: Stopping.

Just do it. There is, unfortunately, no other way.

Step 4: The first few smokeless days.

Because the idea of quitting smoking had been too appalling to even try before; and because I was totally used to a cigarette punctuated existence, I couldn’t anticipate the first few smokeless days. As they passed in a kind of blur, it is equally hard to relate them.

I imagine that each person reacts in a different way, but the withdrawal was quite physical for me; and these are some of the things that helped to take the edge of the physical – and emotional – changes:

1. Walking. Pounding the streets seemed to get rid of the frustration.

2. Satsumas. I’m not a fan in normal life but they are great to keep your hands (and your mouth) busy.

3. Sleeping. I did a lot of this at first – and then absolutely none for the next two months. Don’t worry: it rights itself eventually!

4. Cigarette times. Change the routine. For a while, I had a bath instead of a cigarette when I woke up; I did the ironing when I talked on the phone; and, I skipped the post meal coffee along with the post meal fag. You get the idea.

5. Self congratulations. These are important. Every minute was an achievement and every night gave me a buzz of success. Smoking always made me feel a little ashamed; stopping made me really proud.

Step 5: Random cravings.

Up until March, I thought about smoking every day. I didn’t always crave it and I didn’t necessarily miss it, but I noted its absence.

In March, I brought myself a killer leather jacket with the money I would have spent on smoking.

Whilst I still inhale deeply every time I go past a smoker and there are times when I could murder a cigarette, the life of perpetual longing that I envisaged has not been a reality, and life without cigarettes has been proved a possibility –

Good luck!

Stopping smoking was one of the hardest things that I have everdone.

Losing a nicotine addiction is far more difficult than picking one up, which happened quite easily with a few sneaky drags behind the bus shelter rapidly escalating into a twenty a day crutch.

And so, from an unremarkable date in about 1996, to December 28^th 2008, my day opened – and then closed – with a deep draw on a cigarette; and, without really noticing what I was doing, I structured my life around a packet of Superking Royals.

Addicted? No, I just enjoyed the taste. Unhealthy? Possibly, but given that I was self-destructing on a monumental scale for most of this period, a few cigarettes were hardly likely to tip the balance. Expensive? Outrageously, but a few pennies from here and a little tightening of the belt over there soon bridged the gap.

Because I wasn’t really trying to give up, there wasn’t really any problem.

Because I was choosing to smoke and enjoying the experience; well, why stop?

When your teeth start wobbling and your gums disappear, the aftertaste is a little less pleasant and the notion of choice, a touch more complicated.

Addicted? Totally, and giving up is inconceivable. Unhealthy? Evidently, but the fear just makes the next one more urgent. Expensive? The personal price soars far above the ever rising recommended retail one.

My choice? Maybe once.

When you actually ask whether you can give up – or not – than the illusion that you’re in control is abruptly shattered –

At first, this made the whole situation even harder to bear. Getting up without the promise of that first fix – impossible. A working day without the relief of a few neatly spaced fag breaks – unimaginable. Goodbye to cigarette fuelled stress relief and inspiration; hello to a life of perpetual longing where the continuous craving can never be fixed –

But, in the end, it provided the turning point.

I do not like feeling controlled.

And I really do not like handing my power over to a small tube of tobacco filled paper -

And so, in the realisation that I was captive, and in the subsequent choice between remaining imprisoned – or going for liberation – I found the spark that made me go through with it…

A year on, I can confirm that life without nicotine is not as bad as it will have you believe -

Even if getting to that point’s hard work.

The outcome? I remained a penniless teen – who couldn’t even give up smoking and had therefore thrown away the easiest £500 she had ever been – or would ever be – offered; whilst appearing ungrateful to the well-meaning sponsors and letting them down in the process -

The lesson? The rules are different when you’re dealing with head stuff and when you’re overwhelmed by an addiction. A little distance is imperative and you can’t start adding new things into the mix without a touch of caution – because it can all get horribly confused.

Stopping smoking stops being about stopping smoking – and starts being about pleasing other people.

A failure to stop smoking is no longer a single failure, but multiplies into two disappointments – and two disappointed parties.

And the motivation gets lost as it moves from my motivation – to the one that someone else has given me…which never works so well.

So, however tempting it may be to encourage recovery with the promise of better things, or to tie up getting better with emotional bargaining (the ‘do it because you love me’ line), it’s worth remembering that this is a bit of a risky strategy: you need to give someone the space to work it out for them self or it all gets confused between helping them and pleasing you –

Hey, it was fine to smoke right down to the burning lip line and inhale as deeply as physically possible – because those cigarettes were ‘allocated’. They were okay. And it was fine to fantasise about smoking, it was completely understandable to count down the minutes to the next cigarette – because you had your quota to go with.

The outcome’s no surprise. 10 mysteriously grows to 11. Which, following an unexpected crisis, becomes 12. Then 13 –a one off. And then the floodgates are opened.

Before I really realised what was happening, I was back to where I started, and the only lesson I’d learnt was that giving up smoking was all about deprivation and preoccupation and frustrated desire.

And that I was hooked on something that would probably kill me.

It’s just the same with bulimia.

The self delusion was identical.

For years, I favoured the gradual weaning approach. I convinced myself that taking out one type of binge food at a time would, via a process of elimination, get me there in the end. I really nearly believed that knocking out the first thing in the morning throw up was a step in the right direction. That moving towards a one-day-on-one-day-off schedule would make the whole thing more bearable.

I forgot to factor in the addiction bit. Allen Carr certainly makes a lot of sense – the last one automatically triggers the next.

Cutting down binging worked for a while but it was still in my system.

In the end, however difficult cold turkey sounds, it’s far easier than the agony of temptation.

It’s far more humane than the cruelty of just getting the taste for something – and then having to turn around and say no.

It is, unexpectedly, far less soul destroying than being constantly reminded that you’re doing something that’s killing you – even and especially when it feels like you can’t live without it.

It’s a nasty realisation. But when you finally get there, when the frustration reaches a tipping point, cold turkey stops looking quite so bad.

It takes some guts – but a little decisive action is called for when sitting on the fence is too uncomfortable to bear.

It’s what binging and bulimia thrive on. Strong desire; fast food; instant gratification.

Food is one form; according to the media, consumerism is another.

I agree. The parallels don’t surprise me. Having spent much of 2003 to 2005 in supermarkets, I’m familiar with the lure.

When you’re in the middle of a great gaping emotional void, shops are quite appealing. They’re a preoccupation and then a full time occupation. When nothing feels particularly great, they’re a haven of soft lighting and soothing music and promises. When you want, they provide – with the drip drip drip of addiction: the gratification may be instant, but the satisfaction doesn’t last much longer.

It wears off pretty quick – and just leaves you wanting more.

In 2004, I cottoned on to what was happening pretty quickly and wrote the following bit. I’m a little more eloquent (hopefully!) now, but this says it how it was:

I know that the people in the supermarket recognise me now. I have trawled the shelves for so many hours, over so many days, that I am almost part of the fixtures. Sometimes they look at me curiously or the checkout girls comment that I must be cooking something nice, or, oh, haven’t I got some good bargains. I joke to myself that I must be the queen of bargains, or that I would be the perfect shop assistant, or even create elaborate stories to explain away my obscene purchases, but inside, I imagine them laughing at me and I want to hide.

I sometimes think that this is one of the situations where ignorance is bliss. If I didn’t know that Sainsbury’s reduced their food at approximately 4.15, or that Waitrose slashed their prices 20 minutes before closing time, or that around bank holidays, everything was a lot cheaper, I would never have got into this habit. My days would not be determined by the supermarket’s timetable; the guilt and panic that missing a potential reduction provoked would be gone; the driving necessity would not be so painful. I would not be left with a freezer bursting with food that is contributing to my destruction.

It was the physical consequences that struck me at the time. I was overwhelmed by the volume. With other things, the dependency isn’t so visible. Even if it’s just as soul destroying.

Cracking the food shop habit wasn’t the end of my journey. It was replaced by Sunday afternoons in clothes shops and guilt tainted plastic bags; with pointless wanderings and the same question – what’s the point; with indecision (which one) and price comparison (how much) and mental negotiations….

The breakthrough was twofold. It happened when the frustration and the indecision and the guilt and the futility became too much – and when life kicked in.

It came from a simple little question: “but do you really need anything?” and a a painfully honest answer: “yes, but nothing that I can buy”.

It’s not something I’m very comfortable talking about.

- even though it’s on the rise, and even though it’s blazened across the tabloid on a regular basis.

Maybe it’s the apparent casualness of it all that’s so unsettling. Maybe it feels like we’ve got complacent about teenagers shredding their arms: self mutilation is commonplace.

No. It’s not.

The complacency is wrong; the normalisation is dangerous.

Because self harm’s like any other addiction. Another habit that starts small – and spirals until you sever that artery. Another quick fix shot – that simply makes the next hit inevitable.

It’s just another way of trying to say something and another form of trying to suppress something – without achieving either.

People misinterpret self harm. It doesn’t communicate like talking does. People get scared and shut down, instead; they make assumptions and leap to conclusions.

The suppression’s only temporary; the release, a precursor to the next urge. Self harm may divert your attention from the real issue – for a little while – but the problem’s still festering away.

Skin heals quicker than the soul.

There’s no real transference between the two. The one will not change the other.

Does it sound like I’m telling you what to do? Like I don’t understand the need to get rid of that anger? Like I don’t get the temptation?

Does it sound like I’m unsympathetic to the pain?

Does it sound like I don’t get that it’s a bizarre form of punishment when you’re feeling pretty damn bad about yourself?

I do. But –

Self harm is a false comfort.

It’s an unfair punishment.

It’s a whole new problem on top of whatever the real issue is, whatever’s really going on.

A socially acceptable celebrity endorsed past time? I don’t like to think so. They’re probably feeling as bad as you are.

Attention seeking? Maybe, but that’s a bit of an issue by itself.

A teenage fad? The statistics might well disprove this; either way, the scars will last beyond your teenage years.

The answer and the advice?

Thinking about something doesn’t mean that you have to go through with it -