Family and friends

There are stop smoking services available to help you quit, but you are only likely to use them for the first few weeks of your quit attempt.

If you have been smoking for a long time it will be part of your routine, and breaking the addiction can mean making a lot of changes to your life. Long term support from your family and friends will be crucial to avoiding relapse and making your quit attempt successful.

There are a number of ways your friends and family can support you, including:

• Encouragement – staying positive is crucial and your family and friends can help by supporting and encouraging you by listening to you and helping you to make any changes you need;
• Focus – offering rewards is a great way for your friends to help you stay focused, they can also help by taking up a hobby or exercise with you to keep you active and distract you from smoking;
• Motivation – there will be times in your quit attempt when you will feel demoralised and think that you can’t succeed, at times like this your friends and family can remind you of how far you’ve come and how much you have benefited from stopping smoking.