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"life" (12)

Barbara (37 years )
Nationality Swiss
31 August 2021

Hello everyone! I would like to share my uplifting story with all those who are still struggling to stop smoking for good. It's now 5 months since I last touched a cigarette, and it wasn't at all easy to quit! For about a month, I really struggled with anxiety and obsessive cravings. Then, after the second month, everything fell into place! No more urgent need to smoke, just a little desire (more like a thought) from time to time. I can hardly believe it myself and yet it's true. For a month now, my life has been changing. I feel that I am not at all the same. I was scared that my personality would change: I thought that quitting smoking would make me less interesting and shyer, that I would be less fun. And in fact, to my great surprise, the opposite is true! I am much more open to other people, less stressed, and very confident in myself and about the future. As well as the classic health benefits that come with quitting, for some weeks now I have felt an urgent need to put my whole life in order!! I've learned that I am a strong and motivated person who is full of life. It's as if I must appreciate every second of my new life and have learned how to put my worries into perspective. After having put up with my bad moods before, my friends and family now appreciate my enthusiasm and good humor! Long live non- smokers!!
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Maud (33 years )
Nationality canadian
31 August 2021

Hello! My name is Maud and I wrote my personal experience on this site just under a year ago, when I quit smoking. It will be a year in a few more days and I'm proud, extremely proud. I'm writing again today to show you that yes, it is possible. A year ago I smoked a packet of cigarettes a day. I no longer touch cigarettes and it's not torture, it's a joy. Believe in it, try it, and try it again. And say stuff it to the people who don't believe in you. Find your own motivations, write them down, at home, at work, in the car (thank goodness for Post-Its!). I've had a pretty bad year, to be honest I've cried, I've lost sleep, I've ballooned in weight (gained 22 pounds!), I had pimples all summerbut I came through it all. I gave myself a year to evacuate cigarettes. Here's the proof of it. *I cried for hours on end for no apparent reason. My best friends tried to help and ended up laughing at me, while I was still crying! But it passed. Now I've got my spark back! *I lost sleep. Yes, and that still happens from time to time. I look at the positives hot milk before bed, relaxing infusions, soft music, baths with candles and essential oils. My little girl loves it. So do I. Trying to cure your insomnia is not so bad after all! *My weight has ballooned. Ah yes, I must admit that that is really unpleasant. But I had accepted it might happen and I think that it has really contributed to my success in quitting. A year of being chubby for a healthier life. I'll take it. If I start attacking the green beans instead of the biscuit tin, the scales will soon start smiling again. And with them, my clothes. And as for me, I'm not even thinking about it! *I broke out in pimples in the summer. That, girls (and boys) is the time to go to a beautician for a bit of facial pampering. Take some time for yourself, look after yourselfwhat could be better? I'm now starting my new, healthy life as an ex-smoker. My two best friends have just quit, too. They are sick of having to go outside to smoke when we're all inside! If they are reading this, I'd like them to know that I believe in them. Finally, if I've got enough willpower to quit smoking, I've got enough willpower to achieve many, many things, haven't I? Woohoo!"
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Georg (67 years )
Nationality Swizerland
31 August 2021

I was a hardened smoker, and when I decided to stop I was smoking two packets of cigarettes a day. The ones I smoked were those brown tobacco cigarettes that stink and have no filter - those handed out to the army in the 60s! I was 37 years old and had been smoking for twenty years. Because I knew that my behavior caused me to argue with my friends and family, that I was setting a bad example to my children and that I was damaging my health (and no one even mentioned passive smoking then!) and above all that I was being very stupid, I decided to finish with cigarettes. I had to take the plunge. I decided that, in fact, I only enjoyed about four or five cigarettes of the forty or so I smoked per day, and that if I managed to resist these the battle would be won. Furthermore, I decided that I would no longer lower myself to such a pointless act. Armed with these arguments, and knowing that it had to be all or nothing, I stopped smoking overnight. Once you've decided to quit, the following are the keys to success: *Learn to resist the four or five cigarettes that seem essential (first thing in the morning, after a meal, and so on). You must learn to put up with the craving for about one or two minutes per cigarette, and make sure that you distract yourself during this time. After 4-5 weeks, the intensity of the craving dies down and it disappears completely after 2-3 months. *Have a steel resolve, and simply refuse to raise a cigarette to your lips. *Do some physical exercise. *Stop thinking that we are all victims of modern life and that cigarettes can help us to fight our depression. After the experience I had, I believe that only willpower and good sense can put an end to the habit of smoking. I'll let you imagine what I think of patches and other hypnosis methods - anyone who claims to have found a solution for hardened smokers is on to a very lucrative commercial product. Still, if one of these products helps you to quit, why not! I can't rave enough about the sweet things in life that tobacco robs us of while we are its victims, and that we rediscover as soon as we free ourselves from its grip.
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Jeremy (30 years )
Nationality Swiss
31 August 2021

Hello everyone. I started smoking when I was 12, which might seem young, but if you start at that age, it's just to fit in with the group, to seem cool and not get rejected. But at that age, you also have no idea how much smoking can damage your health. I got caught up in the whirlwind. At 16 I managed to stop smoking for a year, but a short period of depression followed and I fell back into it, dragged down by a friend who was doing just as badly as I was. I should never have restarted! A few years later, I started realizing how much cigarettes were damaging my healthwhen I ran I tasted blood, I threw up more often, I was nervous, on edge, often tired, my breath was like a camel's and I started really worrying about how stained my teeth were getting. Then I met a 45 year old woman with a hole in her throat. She'd had a tracheotomy (already, at her age) because of smoking, so I couldn't understand a word she was saying. And that was the trigger for me. As soon as I got home, I threw away all my cigarettes and now I haven't smoked for a year. I still think about it, because you need a lot of willpower to quit, but it's changed my life. My skin is brighter, I no longer have stained teeth and I have reduced my risk of getting cancer. And I hope that everyone who wants to quit smoking does it, because now I miss certain nights out to avoid suffocating on other people's cigarette smoke, and I'm sick and tired of washing clothes that stink after less than an hour!! Now I know how left out non-smokers can feel and I really regret having put a cigarette in my mouth for the first time. Honestly, you're better off without them!
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Rosalie (59 years )
Nationality Swiss
31 August 2021

I smoked my first cigarette when I was 17 and my last on 14 April 2013 , not counting 18 months of not smoking when I was 30 years old. A whole life with tobacco - it was my oldest friend. I quickly smoked a packet a day and at the end of my time as a smoker I was on 2 and a half or even 3 packets a day. Strangely, I found it harder to quit when I was 30 than I did this time. Back then I had made a bet with myself: You're going to quit, you're going to show everyone that you can. A year and a half later I relapsed, which is not surprising because I'd already won my bet, I'd successfully quit, and the smell of a cigarette that a friend lit in front of me was so tempting Anyway, this time it took me a year and a half to decide to quit, to prepare myself, to convince myself that I could do it, however hard it might be. And then one day when I was surfing the Web I came across Stop-tabac.ch by chance and I've been on it ever since. My decision was made and it was time to start acting, and it is Stop-tabac that has helped me, and all the members of the team who have helped me patiently and calmly, picking me up whenever I felt down. As much as I wanted to quit smoking, I didn't want those around me to suffer because of it, and I didn't want to put on weight. I therefore used Zyban in the way prescribed by stop-tabac and in the following months I took Prozac to get over the difficult moments and avoid testing my resolve. To control my weight, I drank sparkling water every time I felt the need to raise something to my lips. I drank it directly from the bottle like a baby, and sometimes drank 3 liters in a day, but it worked. So, now I'm 64 and rediscovering tastes and smells that I knew in my childhood and that I had lost. I've also got my breath back so I run, I walk, I swim, I live. The smokers around me don't bother me now either. In fact, when I see someone smoking, especially a woman, I think it looks very unsightly, very ugly. I feel so strongly that it's a drug that I want to tell them, please stop destroying yourself. But you can't make other people happy, can you?
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Fabienne (41 years )
Nationality swiss
31 August 2021

Here I am, face to face with reality, face to face with my stupidity. Here I am, and I don't understand. The worst thing that cigarettes contain is Addiction, as that takes away your free will, your determination and even a part of your personality, which is burned away without you realising it in those puffs of pleasure! The cigarette is the partner of all the difficult moments that will always be there. The need for a cigarette is deeply embedded in our lungs when life gets us down, when stress overwhelms us, when boredom overcomes us, when our senses are heightened, when fear strikes us, when our cravings become intolerable, when the force of habit is too strong This loyal friend could be there until our dying moments, until our last gasp on our death bed. This family member, this companion, fills our brain with so much smoke that we can no longer do anything without it we are afraid of living without it instead of with it. Here I am, face to face with myself, face to face with the distressing reality, but I am full of hope and I say NO to this poisonous partnership.
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Cedric (37 years )
Nationality Swiss
31 August 2021

I waited for the desire to quit smoking to come to me. I had tried to stop ten years ago but without any real conviction. Then one morning about a year and a half ago, I was outside smoking the last cigarette in my packet and it was so cold it was snowing. I realized that part of my actions were dictated by tobacco, and that made me want to stand up to it. I decided to free myself and I quit. I'd been smoking for 20 years, and the desire to quit only came to me once in all that time. I didn't want to miss the boat. Tobacco left my life just like that, and I didn't miss it, because I defied it. I also defied all the people who told me I'd only last a month, and then 2 months, then 6 months, then a year My defiance allowed me to never let down my guard.
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Claudia (41 years )
Nationality Holland
31 August 2021

It's now 6 months since I stopped smoking. I wore patches for the first 2 months so I had time to change my habits without missing the nicotine. After that, I stopped using the patches and apart from feeling a bit on edge from time to time, everything went really well. To be honest, my last few years of smoking were completely devoid of pleasure and full of guilt, and I realize now that it was harder to smoke than it was to quit! Let's stop talking about how hard it is to stop smoking - all that does is scare smokers and put them off trying to quit. Personally, I stopped smoking without any great effort, without gaining more than 4 pounds, and without making myself into a martyr. The desire to smoke is like a beast in your belly that demands feeding It is not really you it got introduced into you and can leave again. The sooner you stop feeding it, the sooner it disappears. Cutting down on cigarettes just keeps the beast alive. I would like my personal experience to reassure smokers who want to quit that it is not so difficult. Since I stopped smoking, I enjoy my life a lot more. I no longer have to live with the guilt I felt in relation to my children, my health and my wallet. I'm finally at peace with myself. That really makes it worth giving up for good. Forget whatever people have told you, and make quitting work for you. You'll soon see that it's much easier than you thought!
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Olivia (24 years )
Nationality Belgian
31 August 2021

That's it, I've quit. After 8 years of smoking 15 cigarettes a day, here I am going through a personal revolution. It's crazy. I can hardly believe it. I, who couldn't bear the thought of not smoking the after-dinner cigarette, the start- of-the-night cigarette, the ice-breaker cigarette, and thousands of others. How do you get over that? How do you fill the void left by cigarettes? I'd never managed to go a whole day without smoking. In 8 years! 8 years of my life where I smoked every day And now it's been a week without a single cigarette, and believe me, everything's fine! Yes, I had some cravings in the first 2-3 days, a bit of a headache, a short temperyes, that happened. But nothing terrible. I feel spurred on by all the good that I'm doing, or all the bad that I'm no longer doing. I breathe deeply, I close my eyes and I try to picture the inside of my body. It will probably take it years to recover completely, but I already feel better. It's as if an 8 year argument between my body and me has finally finished. We're speaking to each other again. Actually, my body never stopped talking to me (pain in my lungs, pain in my chest, discolored skin and teeth, breath that smelt like an ashtray) but I didn't listen. Now I'm my body's friend again, and the best thing is that my body doesn't hold any kind of grudge. My boyfriend says that I've never looked so beautiful, and as for me, I've never felt better. So come on, it's easy! Do it for your own self-esteem!"
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Lily (60 years )
Nationality Canada
22 June 2021

I wrote a testimony for this site in 2003, when I was 42 years old and struggling to quit smoking. I quit on and off in the years following, and when I was 50, learned that I had cancer which had started in my airway and grown into my left lung. Although not technically a "lung cancer", I'm sure all those years of smoking didn't help. Also breathing in hair dye, because I was a hairstylist. I had to have my left lung removed, which is major surgery. Luckily I survived. I have never smoked again. I sometimes wistfully think about the (psychological) relaxing effect of smoking a cigarette, but I know it's not real, and all the pain and suffering it causes is not worth it. I'm 60 now and living my best life. But having one lung is a constant reminder of my poor choices in regards to smoking.
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