She said: “I was taken on as a Stop Smoking Advisor in Ellesmere Park while I still smoked. I remember training in London under Professor Robert West and Professor Peter Hajek, and I was still smoking at the time.

“I knew I could help people. I’d worked as a counsellor prior to this role, and I could share my own experiences of trying to quit as I knew first-hand how difficult it was.

“I was a single mum with three small kids. I had smoked all of my life, after starting when I was 13. Smoking, to me, was everything. It was very much tied to my emotions – it was nerves, anxiety, anger, and back then I thought it was my best friend. When I see photos of me with my kids, I always had a cigarette in my hand.”

It was working as a Stop Smoking Advisor and witnessing the extent of the damage caused by smoking that inspired Caroline to try quitting for good.

“My colleague suggested that I gave quitting a go myself. I went on nicotine patches and an inhalator, and that first quit attempt lasted two weeks. But I fell into a cycle of going on the patches, then relapsing as soon as I came off them. The will was there but I really struggled to maintain it long-term.

“I felt such shame about helping all of these people to quit, yet I couldn’t do it myself. I remember crying on a nurse’s shoulder about it at the time, and he recommended that I tried stop smoking medication instead.

“I went on a six-month programme on this medication, and it worked. I stopped. It was a breath of fresh air.

“However, I relapsed again when I went on holiday to Turkey. I’d meet people during my time doing stop smoking support work who hadn’t smoked for 10+ years but had started again on holiday. I’d say to them ‘Okay, let’s get you back on track’, but I never thought that would have happened to me.

“But because I had ignited the addiction again, I ended up smoking again. I had to wait to go back on the medication again, but once I did, I was finally able to quit, and I haven’t touched a cigarette since. It’s been 13 years now.”

“Will I touch a cigarette again? Never. Can I afford to have just the one? No. I can’t even afford to have a single drag.

“My life has improved so much since quitting. As well as improving my health, I’ve been keeping my ‘smoking money’ in a savings account, and I use that to see the world. I’ve been to India, Vietnam, the US, everywhere.

“My mental health has improved too. Feelings of anxiety were definitely worse when I smoked – even just that little voice stressing about money for cigarettes, wondering where you left your cigarettes, your lighter…

“I regret making the decision to smoke when I was 13, but I can’t regret it too much because it’s been part of the journey which led me to where I am now.”

Caroline now uses her life experience to support others, as she understands all of the pitfalls on the journey to become smokefree, and she strives to help other smokers to overcome them.

“I know how desperate you get for wanting a cigarette. I’ve been poor, I’m a single mum of three kids who has lived on benefits. I’ve picked cigarettes up off the floor, I’ve bought the “cheap cigarettes” that I couldn’t have afforded otherwise. I have been through it all.

“Now, I put all of that experience into practice. Because I have my skills in counselling, I can really delve deep to the root of the problem behind their smoking. If someone is having problems with stress, and you don’t address it or deal with it in a better way, they are more likely to continue smoking.

“It’s a case of looking at that situation and working out how best to deal with it, and then how to appropriately give them those life skills so they can change their thoughts and words around smoking.

“It’s really important that we can support patients in this way, showing them that they can change it around. You can’t give a box of patches out and say ‘there, good luck’. You have to support smokers to prevent them from relapsing. But if they do, it’s letting them sit with that relapse, talking through it and putting steps in place to prevent it from happening again.

“At the end of the day, there are thousands of people better off for having those conversations with us, and not suffering from smoking-related illnesses like cancer or COPD.

“I have met many people who are not here now because they couldn’t manage to quit successfully, and I remember every single patient that didn’t make it. I do this for them in a way too.

“Quitting, to me, was one of the most difficult things to achieve, but it’s absolutely the most rewarding thing to be able to give back to myself.”

*Not Caroline’s real photo.