Dear Guest,

QuitCoach is designed to provide you with a personal guide to becoming a long-term ex-smoker. This advice has been personally tailored for you based on the questions you answered on Monday, 1 September 2025. We hope you find it useful. Read it carefully, and try the suggestions. If you do follow the advice, it should help you to stay quit and become a permanent nonsmoker. You can print it out (use the pdf version) and you will be able to refer to it whenever you feel the need.

Your current situation

Congratulations on having quit. It is still too early to know how things will go, so you need to pay attention to the experiences you have over the next few hours. Using this program can help you to stay quit. The first few days after quitting are usually the hardest because your body is adjusting to nicotine withdrawal. This can make you feel pretty awful. However, it will end! It may take a little time before you can appreciate how good it is to be free of the need to smoke. Keep it up, stay on track and you will succeed. Use this program to help you work out strategies in the areas where you are having problems.

Do not give in to temptations. Remember your mind will come up with lots of reasons for having a cigarette, some of which will appear really convincing on the face of it, such as 'one can't hurt' or 'just this once'. When this happens, remind yourself that this is your addiction trying to regain control over your body. Be prepared to immediately push these thoughts out of your mind and resist the cravings. As you will have realized by now, it is difficult to think clearly when craving a cigarette, so don't try to. Instead, rehearse a statement in your mind like 'I am quitting for my health and nothing will get in my way' and use it when you're tempted to smoke. Be single-minded about it. This is a fight with your nicotine addiction and so far you are winning - make sure you keep it that way.

Remember, DO NOT fall into the trap of reviewing your decision; it is a decision you have already thought through. Instead, concentrate on the end result: feeling healthier and freed from your addiction.

Take things a day at a time. The first day or two involves reacting to what comes up. As much as possible, build more non-smoking activities into your life by avoiding situations where you used to smoke, at least until you feel you are coping in other day-to-day situations.

For more information on this program, click on How QuitCoach works, which can also be found on the additional resources page.

Special issues to consider

We notice that you are still smoking other products. Have you considered quitting ALL forms of smoked tobacco? Continuing to smoke anything can make quitting cigarettes harder. Smoking tobacco in any form will help maintain your addiction. However, in the end, the decision is yours. If you are finding it difficult and are worried about relapsing, then try giving up everything before you go back to smoking cigarettes. If you do continue to smoke cigars and/or pipes, it is important that you do not inhale the smoke into your lungs, as this is particularly harmful. Just taking the smoke into your mouth should be enough, and is a little less harmful (but still harmful). The advice in this letter is written on the assumption that you are planning to quit all smoked tobacco products, so you will need to remember that for you the advice only relates to cigarettes. If you really want to continue using some smoked products, at least give them up until you have quit cigarettes for several months. At this point, you might be able to have the occasional puff on a cigar without relapsing back to smoking, but even here it is a risk.

How addicted are you, and is it worth using stop smoking medication?

Based on what you have told us about your smoking patterns, you have a strong physical addiction to nicotine. This means that you will have to cope while your body adjusts to no longer having nicotine. You need to prepare yourself for dealing with cravings when they occur, and doing so in a way that leads to them becoming weaker over time.

Your quitting history should give you confidence that you have the ability to overcome your addiction. Your main challenge will not be cravings, but is likely to be learning how to become a nonsmoker. This involves giving up the idea that smoking is important to you. We suggest you pay particular attention to the advice under 'The Value You Give Smoking'. An important feature of this program is that it provides advice on how to change the habits you've learned over 3 years of smoking, so that you can come to think and act as a nonsmoker.

You should think about using a nicotine replacement product or another form of drug treatment (e.g. Varenicline) to help you quit. It can make the early days of your attempt easier to get through by reducing the strength of cravings to smoke. More information about stop-smoking medication is available in the Stop-Smoking Medication Advice Sheet.

Implications of recent experiences

You have indicated that you are using electronic cigarettes. We cannot provide much advice about electronic cigarettes as there is currently little information about their effectiveness and safety. Though there is also some preliminary research suggesting that electronic cigarettes reduce cravings, we feel it is important to warn you that there is no good study showing that they actually increase your chances of successfully quitting long term. You may be better off using the tried and true nicotine replacement products. If you continue to use them, you should make sure you get them from a reputable supplier.

Based on your answers, you often find yourself smoking without realizing. This can be a real problem when trying to quit. It is important that you get your smoking back under conscious control. Try to pay attention to every cigarette you smoke. Be on the lookout for situations where you might just find yourself having one without thinking.

Reasons for quitting

Having quit, if you have suffered health effects from smoking, you have stopped the clock. In some areas your health will be improving; in others, things will have stopped getting worse. You are minimising your health risks. Keep this in mind as you face the challenge of staying quit. Find out more about the health benefits of quitting that you can look forward to.

Based on what you've told us you used to smoke, and what you paid for it, you are saving about $10 every day, which is $70 per week. If you stay quit you will be $3650 better off every year. It's certainly another good reason to keep at it!

Enjoy the extra money, save it or use it constructively and enjoy the added financial freedom you have.

The value you give smoking

Your mood

Overcoming obstacles

What to do now

Congratulations, you are on your way to a smokefree lifestyle. By agreeing to quit today you can now focus on succeeding. Remember to stay focused on achieving your goal and start preparing yourself for the challenge ahead.

In spare moments, spend time thinking about what you have learnt from doing the exercises we have recommended. What can you do to make quitting easier? What can you do to help yourself overcome difficult situations? Try practising the suggestions we have made, especially not smoking in the situations where you think you will find it hardest not to smoke. If you fail, it tells you that you either need more practice or other strategies. If there are situations you can avoid, then plan to keep away from them in the week or so after you quit. Once you have been quit for a while it should be a little easier to cope in these situations.

We recommend you return and review your progress with QuitCoach after you have been quit for about a week, on 07 September 2025, unless you feel a need for more advice before then. Remember, you can return to QuitCoach to receive new advice any time you think things have changed enough to make it worthwhile.