Jade & Trent

For Jade and Trent, their two daughters were their inspiration to become free of all drugs, including tobacco.

Jade

We had both been addicts, with recreational drugs. Akala, our first baby, was my reason to give that all up. I couldn’t cut everything, so I carried on smoking. I had heard from a doctor that it’s more stressful for the baby if you give up smoking completely. I thought that was fantastic information! So, I smoked right through my pregnancy just doing that five smokes a day thing.

Trent went to rehab and I kept smoking. When I fell pregnant again we both had numerous attempts at giving up smoking. I was getting really frustrated, was in absolute tears. I thought ‘I’m going to be a smoker for the rest of my life.’ My aunt had told me you may give up smoking, but you’ll always go back to it. I thought ‘What’s the point then?’

My midwife at National Women’s said ‘I’m going to put you onto Smokechange.’ and I thought ‘Oh yeah, whatever. It’s not going to work, nothing works. I’ve tried patches and I’ve tried gum.’

But I spoke to Vidya, on the phone and she was just amazing. At first I thought ‘Get out of my time’, but it was the novelty of it that got to me. I did some tracking first. I love doing things like that. Then there was the turning your mind stuff around, like from ‘this cigarette stops me stressing’ to thinking  ‘this cigarette makes me stressed‘. It became a competition with myself, seeing if I could smoke less and less. At the start, the idea of Vidya was annoying. I’d miss her calls, then think ‘That’s just so rude!’ The more I spoke to her the more encouraging I found her. She was really awesome.

A couple of months down the track, she said ‘I think this is the time you said you wanted to be smokefree.’ I thought ‘Oh no! It can’t be time yet.’ But it was. Part of me wanted to do it, and then it didn’t work. So I thought ‘Right, I’m not going to give up on it. In seven more days I’ll try again.’ I did and that was the last time that I ever had a smoke. I sort of put a bit of it down to God. I don’t think God did it just ‘bang’, but I think He put things in place to help me get through.

I hated the smell of smoke on me. I was embarrassed about it. I sprayed with perfume, put moisturiser on my hands, would have half a pack of gum, but you knew that never masked it. You felt like ‘Oh, now they know I’m trying to mask the smell.’ It was horrible, I was ashamed to be smelly. It’s self-respect, isn’t it?

Some of my friends are still partying. I had to say ‘catch you later’ to some. I didn’t want them around my children. Children take up so much time and they take up your heart as well. Lots of heart time. Smoking kept the real ‘clean up’ from happening. I’ve been this long clean, if I pick up one now I lose all of that time and have to go back to square one.

It’s pride, too. I’m really proud of myself. And the kids, I don’t ever want them to have that image in their heads of us smoking. I want to be alive for them. Every time I had a cigarette I had to sit down because of the pain in my chest, it was getting really severe. I had to breatheshallow. I don’t want to die when I’m forty or fifty.

If the children hadn’t been here, we wouldn’t have had the same desire to quit. I probably still would have been using drugs and drinking. The girls were my intervention. At the start, I did struggle when Trent had a cigarette.  Vidya said ‘Do you want me to call him?’ I said ‘Please, that would be awesome.’

Trent

My tipping point was Jade wanting to change and my wanting to support her. Vidya called, sent me patches. I got off them, then got on the gum, but I only had it for about three weeks. I started to cut down, to a few a day, then two, then one. I didn’t plan that. It was working - the nicotine, but I wasn’t going forwards. Some days I didn’t have any smokes then I’d realise when I got home and gasp ‘Better have one.’ It’s weird. Vidya calling up was great.

I’m kind of like Jade, too, you know, with the whole God intervention. We were in a really bad way two years ago. I was in a dump. I was not a visible father. We had no food. We were living on Jade’s benefit. I thought I took drugs to be cool, for the feelings, but I came to see it was to run from my feelings, from situations and emotions. Anxiety would kick in.

I’m not running anymore. Now freedom to me is to sit with myself. Today we’ve got cars, we’ve got a lovely home, I’ve got a job that I’ve had for over a year and a half. The kids have got clothes.

For me giving up cigarettes is about growing more as a man, ’causeI’m not using anything to escape. This is huge ‘cause, cleaning up is a whole new life. I’m twenty-nine, but I’ve been a drug addict and using narcotics since I was fourteen.

We’ve both stayed clean for two years. When I left rehab, I attended Narcotics Anonymous. I was still smoking and still claiming my ‘clean time’. But I was really using cigarettes as my ‘go to’ to suppress my feelings. Nicotine is still really a drug. I got really aware, that every time I got sad or angry I’d smoke. Before, I thought it was boredom, but it wasn’t.

Being a dad is huge. The TV ads affect me now. Before, I’d change the channel. It never used to sink in for me.  Money was a big factor. Realising we were spending a hundred dollars a week and we were struggling. For me praying was huge, too. And talking with workmates, just voicing it. If you voice a problem it gets halved.

Jade and Trent's Closing Words

We are not ashamed of anything. We’ve been through it and we’ve done it. You can come from nothing to having something, through perseverance, and if you believe in yourself.

Don’t do it on your own, get support, find programmes, do whatever it takes and you will find freedom.