“I managed to quit smoking within a day,” said Charmaine Lam, NYP student second year student who used to be an intermittent smoker.
Lam picked up the habit at the age of 13. As a young teenager, she took up cigarettes due to peer pressure. It all started with a group of friends she met during a school orientation programme. She began to hang out with them ever since the start of her secondary school life.
School life with the clique had been totally fine until the day when Lam discovered a box of cigarettes in one of their bags. Eventually, she found out that most of them were smokers. She was afraid that the clique would leave her out, as most of the time they would be hiding in the campus’s toilet to smoke.
Lam felt that the only way to bond with her friends was to do what they always do together, it was to smoke together. As an underage, Lam knew that it was illegal to purchase cigarettes. However, she managed to get them from a provision shop opposite her school. “Sometimes, the uncle at the provision shop allowed me to buy them,” she said.Lam stopped smoking at secondary three, she said that smoking was both time and money consuming as she had to return to the same provision shop in order to get cigarettes form the uncle.
Lam was not an addictive smoker, she smoked discontinuously and she started the habit again when she entered Polytechnic. She had a hectic life under the course she was studying in and smoking was one of the ways she uses to distress. At the same time, she could make friends with her new classmates.
She continued until the next semester and finally realised that she should stop, “I felt that I had to quit it once and for all and not carry on anymore,” Lam said. She decided positively that she wanted to quit and avoided negative thoughts about how difficult the process might be.
Many smokers successfully give up cigarettes by replacing them with new habits. Lam was able to find a hobby that she enjoys and it was dancing. She joined the school’s street dance club and realised that it was indeed a good distraction to make smoking impossible.
“My friends and family supported and encouraged me,” said Lam.
Studies by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Service National Institutes of Health have shown that smokers actually find it difficult to quit smoking. This is mainly due to the development of strong physical addictions resulting from habitual use.
As for Lam, she succeeded as she could control herself from the temptation. “I had to really control myself,” she said.
Although it was only one day, the entire process of quitting was after a few attempts as she had been smoking from time to time. Her perseverance, support from friends and family also led her to quit smoking successfully.
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