I smoked my first cigarette at 6, really started at 13 and smoked 2 packs a day for 30 years. Patches are the best way.

I smoked for roughly 30 years and was not in very good shape when I gave up eight years ago - that improved rather a lot.

The problem is that nicotine is not the only addictive substance involved. If it was then you could chew gum, wear patches or whatever and off you go. There is an extremely complicated set of chemicals involved in fag smoke. There is also the habit effect and other complications.

In the end I think that boring old will power is the only way and any trick or tool or whatever that you can deploy to bolster that is how you give up.

My initial plan was to vape but I soon found that unsatisfying and it looked to me like trying to substitute one habit with another.

Once I started stopping, I didn't want to stop! It was extremely hard but I always reminded myself that I had got so far and that that time would be wasted if I had to start again. I followed doubled up time periods - one day, two days, 1/2 a week, a week, a fortnight, a month, two months ("cripes, this might work") and so on.

A mental tool I developed was a couple of mantras: "I don't want to smell" and "I don't want to die". Whenever I felt the cravings I repeated those to myself and I have no idea why but it did work for a while at a time. Gradually the need tailed off (say around two years)

I remember having quite vivid dreams where I would "crack" and start smoking again. I had to do quite a lot of mental verification to prove to myself that it was just a dream. At one point I even smelt my clothes to prove to myself it was all a dream.

We are all different and there is no right or wrong way to quit. One thing we can all agree on is it is hard, very hard but not impossible. Pick a strategy that might work for you and be prepared to change it but please do have a go. It really is worth it.

How did you taper off patches? Are you still on them?