Clare's stop smoking diary

Week 4: Dissenters in the midst

When second-hand smoke rage hits home in an exclusive restaurant, Clare realises she is well on her way to joining the smug ex-smoker club. Fancy joining her?

Have your say on Clare's stop smoking progress and share your own stories, experiences and advice.

Three weeks down and I'm getting pretty confident I have cracked it. My smoking celibacy is no longer nagging away on an hourly basis, and I genuinely am feeling the positive effects of being a non-smoker. The cravings are still there, but are much more manageable and less frequent - hoorah!

I was one of five friends who stopped smoking, Charli and five (now-six)-week-Gemma you have met. But the two others, who shall remain anonymous as I am not in the business of naming and shaming (but you know who you are don't you Amy and Gaby), both brought their fags to the pub with them the other night having leapt shamelessly off the wagon and back into the tobacco fields. For the first time I was the only non-smoker at a table of smokers and I must admit I did salivate momentarily as they delved into their Marlborough Lights packets and lit up.

As the night wore on however, I barely registered that I was not smoking, noticing instead how much other people smoke. And actually, I think most of my smoking mates smoke less than I used to. Indeed, the same happened when I went to Sketch for afternoon tea the other day. As I was tucking into my smoked salmon sandwich (with the crusts cut off - ahh the joys of rediscovering taste buds), someone lit up behind me and instead of inhaling deeply with nostalgia, I felt a bit peed off that my smoked salmon sandwich was suffering from second hand smoking. And even worse, I very very nearly did that super annoying non-smokers 'cough' - the one that is pointedly aimed at the smoker and says 'look how RUDE you are, you are making me ILL'.

There is something about being a new non-smoker that makes you incredibly annoying to everyone around you. There is a certain smugness, a certain 'if I can do it, you can do it' that makes people who still smoke want to slap you - hard. I should know, I avoided the newly-tobacco-free for at least six months, or until they started smoking again. So I am painfully aware of not preaching - especially as I know that if I let my guard down for a minute the temptation will be back, which is what happened last time.

The last time I quit smoking, I quit drinking at the same time. I had a moment of madness and decided I was going to run the London Marathon, deprive myself of my two favourite pleasures and replace them with cold mornings, constant stiffness and a non-existent social life. I threw myself into training, five mornings a week speed training, hill training and interval training plus a long distance run at weekends of between two and three hours. I was jumping into freezing cold baths (fancying myself as a bit of a Paula Radcliffe), nursing broken toe-nails, fending off knee injuries and suffering nipple chaffing.

Then, a week before the big day, I had terrible pains in my shins, one trip to the docs and an x-ray later revealed that I had broken my shins - literally broken them. I had trained so hard that I had developed stress fractures in both legs and had to pull out. Yes, it is a very sad tale I know - but what did I do? Went home, put my feet up on the sofa, turned to America's Next Top model and tucked into a bottle of vodka and a packet of fags.

So no, I shall not be slapping myself on the back and preaching to my mates about how great I am to have given up just yet...not until I have suffered numerous disappointments, stresses and the odd broken bone as a non-smoker will I be able to say I am truly free.

Don't forget to come back next week to see how Clare is getting on! In the meantime why not visit the Stop Smoking Message Board?

See Page 2 for a reminder of previous diary entries.