Joyce off the smokes finally after 55 years
Invercargill woman Joyce Cochran never thought she’d be able to give up smoking for good.
Smoking was almost a given. Both her parents smoked, as well as her sister and husband.
But after 55 years Cochran has finally achieved her goal.
The 70-year-old remembers exactly how she came to be a smoker. She was 15 and had just started a job at H & J Smith when a workmate offered her a cigarette at morning tea.
After refusing several times, Cochran eventually gave in. ‘‘I used to lie down when I had a smoke because I got giddy,’’ she said.
While living in Australia she tried hypnotherapy to take away her cravings, but it did not work.
When she was 46 she lost her husband to lung cancer, and later in life nursed her sister in Waimate until she died of lung disease.
Cochran saw all the warning labels, the blackened lungs in jars and heard all the horror stories that went alongside smoking, but nothing worked. ‘‘Fear doesn’t work.’’ After her sister died, Cochran returned to Invercargill where she endeavoured to give up for good.
‘‘I came back here and I thought ‘why am I still doing this?’’’
Joining a support group at Nga Kete was the only way to make her stop.
‘‘You can’t lie to a fellow group member. The people at Quitline can’t see you. They ask how I’m doing, and I say ‘great’ with a cigarette in my mouth,’’ she said.
‘‘You can’t lie. The guy next to you will smell it.’’
Her support group of five are breath tested as soon as they arrive at a meeting to make sure they haven’t been smoking, she said.
She was given a small plastic inhaler to use whenever she gets the urge for a cigarette.
‘‘I can’t believe just four deep breaths of this thing is enough.’’
Cochran has now gone without a cigarette for about 125 days.
Next month is Stoptober, a 31-day nationwide challenge to stop people smoking. So far 150 people in Southland have signed up to take part.