Ngareta

Ngareta has been smokefree now for one year. Her two children were her motivation to change

The start for me was my first baby. I found I was pregnant, was still smoking, got a midwife. She approached me about Smokechange. I gave it a go, lasted seven months smokefree, but went back to smoking three weeks after Levi was born.

Six weeks later, I fell pregnant again. My midwife encouraged me to see the Smokechange people again. I wasn't one hundred percent sure at first, but went home, thought about it and decided 'No, I'm going to give up for my baby and me.'

When the booklets arrived I read through them and went 'cold turkey' from there. The one that stood out was What to do with your hands. It got me into knitting, a lot of knitting, and gardening.

Before I had kids I thought I would never give up smoking. Everyone I know smokes. But when I fell pregnant I just thought of myself and my babies. It was hard, though, 'cause my partner smoked and everyone smoked around me. Every time I'd see them it was like 'I want that', you know, a puff. But then I'd take myself away from them. I got over that.

At first I had terrible mood swings. My partner gave up for a while with me and that was a real big help. He went back to smoking after our baby was born 'cause he thought 'Oh well, since she's had baby she's going to smoke again.' But I thought, 'No, that's it. I don't want my kids watching me smoke anymore.'

I was thinking, if I want this, its going to be easy. No more getting up in the morning and feeling croaky. No more feeling sick. I used to be so motivated in the morning and then after I had that cigarette I'd feel so lazy. I thought 'I don't want to be lazy and not healthy anymore.' I couldn't even run to the end of the driveway without huffing and puffing. Plus I've got asthma.

And my kids seeing me smoking, that's a big thing for me. I didn't want them thinking 'Yeah, that's OK, that's cool. If she does it, I'll do it'. I didn't want them smelling it on me, inhaling it. I just didn't want them to go through that and end up getting sick because of smoking.

I noticed that when I did give up smoking I became more confident. I wasn't as shy and deep. I didn't try to hide myself like when I was smoking. I noticed I came out of my shell more, was more approachable to people and not just a shadow.

I don't want to go back to smoking because I don't want to go back to being down, and I don't want to lose the buzz that I'm on, the happiness I feel. It's been a year now and then it'll be two years, then three years.

This is where it's at. This is what's going to happen. I don't care if you smoke. When I first stopped smoking I was like 'Don't come around me if you smoke 'cause it'll make me smoke.' Now I can sit there with them smoking and it doesn't bother me.

It felt like being an old person to me, when I was smoking. It's like being locked in a smoky area and when you come out of it, it's like a big gush of fresh air. You just don't want to give that up.

I'm just real happy. That's my high. I'm happy that I've done it for my kids and I'm happy that my kids won't see me smoking anymore and that they'll look up to me.

The way I see it, there's the bad line and the good line and I've taken the good line. At the end of that line are my kids and the more I go down that line the stronger I get within myself. I used to be not that strong in myself, but when I was starting off down the smokefree road the strength was coming in to me and now I'm strong.

My kids make me strong, thinking about them, about their lives. I don't want them to think 'Oh Mummy's not strong. She smokes, sits around the house. She's not motivated anymore, doesn't play with us anymore.' That's just boring, dumb and that's not positive. I want them to think 'Mummy's strong enough to come out and play with us, to be with us, to make us be strong.' That's what I want my kids to think. That's what strengthens me.

When you smoke and then you give it up, you think 'Oh wow! I can actually do that. I'm strong enough to overcome that person I was.' It makes you keep going and going and overcoming more things in life. I was a bad drinker and now I'm not a drinker because after smoking I thought 'If I can give up smoking then I can give up drinking.'

You can actually feel it, like inside your body or in your soul, that you're a stronger person. You're so happy with yourself. You just want to get rid of more and more things that are bad in your life. It just feels really good when you do get those things out of your life.

If I didn't do Smokechange I think I would still be smoking. Smokechange was a really big thing for me. I like the way they think. Robyn showed me this picture. It was of a river and this side was the smoking side and the other was the no smoking side. It helped me learn about my good health and my bad health, and it made me want to go for my good health.

The river thing opened up my eyes and I thought 'Oh my God! If a lot of smokers looked at this and saw their negative stuff about smoking and then their good stuff about not smoking, maybe that could change their ways.' Everybody wants to go for the good things. That one was a real big one for me, you know, realising the good things I can get out of not smoking.

I felt Robyn really did care about me and my health and she was trying to help me. I really felt that connection with her. She was like the light that flickered to me. I would look back to her all the time if I thought about having a cigarette while I was pregnant. I would think about her and what she said to me and think 'No, she'll be there to support me and keep supporting me, no matter what, and I don't want to go back to that person I used to be.'

In the middle of it all you do want to go in two directions. You do want to smoke and you don't want to smoke. You do want to be happy and you don't want to be happy. In the middle of all that I felt really confused. To overcome that feeling I pictured my kids. It's like I'm in the middle and there are all these directions poking out of me and in all those directions there's my kids.

I realised that my kids were at the end of all the lines. It was like a shining light - the good line. It became really obvious and then that was the road I took. It got real easy after that. You take that good line and then you feel good about yourself, you feel strong about yourself and that's how I became the person I am today.

Ngareta's Closing Words

Think about your kids. Think about their future. You don't want your kids to smoke. Definitely not. If you smoke, they'll think that's normal and they'll smoke.
Think about the person you want to be and the family you want to bring up, it's about yourself, who you want to be, not about other people, really.