Trina clears the air and loves it

Alex Hickey
Trina Dennison of Napier smoked for nearly 20 years before deciding to quit.
At first she picked up the habit to "fit in" with her new work mates, later on because she enjoyed it and, more recently, to relieve stress.
But when five-year-old Nathan sat down with mum to watch TV and saw some "horrible" ads about the impact of smoking then it was only a matter of time before she stubbed out her last cigarette.
The graphic Ministry of Health ads showed how smoking could lead to heart disease, blindness and a slow death from lung cancer, heart disease, or any gruesome condition you care to mention.
"Nathan kept saying to me, 'Mum you have to stop smoking, you're going to go blind, you're going to die'," Mrs Dennison said.
That was the catalyst for the mum to quit.
"I did it for him, really," she said.
And also for herself, to use a clich?.
Nathan's fear might have tipped her over the edge but she was also coming slowly to a realisation that she could not, and did not want to, carry on as she was.
The former Masterton girl started smoking at just 15 when she moved to New Zealand's "Big Smoke" (Auckland).
She took up a job at a supermarket in Henderson and the adjustment to big-city life for the girl from the small rural town was difficult.
"I started smoking just to fit in," she said.
Almost 20 years on and she was still puffing away. For most of that time she maintained a 15-a-day habit but by the end of last year she had doubled that to 30.
"I realised I needed to stop. I had doubled the amount I was smoking and didn't want to do the same again in 10 years time - it was time to quit."
However, first there was just the small matter of stress to overcome.
There was some at home but the new anti-smoking legislation was also taking its toll on her shredded nerves.
Mrs Dennison said many places such as pubs and restaurants were becoming smoke-free last year and that was making her habit even worse.
"I would stress about where I could smoke and ended up smoking twice as much as I normally did at home to make up for it (the ban)," she said.
But that was the storm before the calm - her mind was made up, she was just waiting for the right moment.
And it came at a friend's house, who was being visited by the Hawke's Bay District Health "quit line" team.
"It was pure luck and coincidence," she said.
Her friend was looking for their help and they offered it to her as well.
From that day in February she had not looked back. She went on the nicotine patches for a month, but decided she did not need them as she had made the psychological break, and her son Nathan was telling everyone in school that - "mummy's not smoking anymore."
No pressure on mum then.
A steely determination and a resolution to keep busy any time the cravings kicked in has seen her through so far.
"You need to break the habit of having that first one in the morning and then take it hour by hour and day by day," Mrs Dennison said.
Any time she felt the urge to smoke she went for a walk or played with her son or kept busy.
She now feels much better and a lot fitter as well, and her husband Roger was proud of her commitment.
And, even more importantly, she had more money to spend and her clothes no longer smelt of smoke.
"Even food tastes better, and my tastebuds have come back," she said.
* Today is World Smokefree Day.