By Rachel Kleinman
Emily Howard used to stand outside in wet, cold weather, shivering in the doorways of restaurants while friends talked and ate inside. But she has come in from the cold after quitting smoking earlier this year – and the graphic warnings on Australia’s hardcore new cigarette packaging helped her give up.
Howard, 26, a Department of Defence employee, started smoking at 15. She was embarrassed by the habit, she says, because her partner and most friends did not share it.
She decided to give up when her mother, who was ”quite a heavy smoker”, got a blood clot in her leg. ”That was a bit of scare,” she recalls. ”She’s 51 and had been smoking for 40 years. She needed that push and I said I’d do it with her.”
Read the full story at The Age here.
