Sign up to the Quit plan
The HSE Quit programme helps thousands of people give up smoking every year, but research shows that many smokers choose to go it alone when they quit. With support from the Quit programme, friends, family or even other quitters you have a much better chance of success.
Each of our Quit Leaders will be following their own personalised Quit Plan, with the goal of finally kicking their habit. Research shows that if you use stop smoking medication and join a stop smoking support programme set a quit date and can stay off cigarettes for 28 days you are five times more likely to quit for good, so we will follow their progress as they take on this challenge.
Here are some of the reasons our Quit Leaders are determined to quit for good:
Conor Hiney, Co Laois: “In October, myself and my partner had a baby girl. I don’t want her growing up in an environment where there’s smoking going on.”
Linda Quane, Co Limerick: “I want to do it and hopefully succeed so that I can inspire the likes of my mother, who’s been smoking all her life also.”
Fergus McNally, Co. Dublin: I want to quit before I'm 50. That's happening in August, so that's one of the main reasons.
Patricia Kenneally, Co Cork: “My Mum has COPD. I see her when she’s breathing now, and I just say, ‘I don’t want to go down that road’.
Colm Flood, Co Dublin: “I got sepsis last year and I ended up in hospital. They took a chest x-ray and they showed me the damage that cigarettes had done to my lungs.”
Mary O’Connor, Co Kilkenny: “This breathlessness seems to be getting worse. When I’m walking, and even when I’m sitting down. So that’s my main aim. To hopefully heal my lungs a little bit.”
Sharon Brophy, Co Dublin: “The last straw was my wheezing in the evening time.”
Rita Conway, Co. Dublin: It's a hard time to give up as we're all deprived of so many things, but I keep telling myself this is not a deprivation.
Eithne Deane, Roscommon: Now is the best time to quit, with support like this.
Michael Carlton, Co. Waterford: The last, say, year or two, I can feel it in my lungs.
Grahame Newell, Co. Dublin: No other change, no matter what you do, whether you diet, how much you go running, it's never going to improve anything as much as stopping smoking.
Continue to follow their journey over on our YouTube channel.
You can start your own 28 days no smoking challenge and Quit journey by signing up here, calling Freephone 1800 201 203 or free text QUIT to 50100.
