Hypnotism, acupuncture, patches, gum - there's not much Ali McTear hasn't tried to give up smoking.
She's tried more times than she can count, giving up for two years at one point before lighting up again.
This time around she's been smokefree for three weeks and is sharing her battle to give up as part of World Smokefree Day today.
Going by her "quit tracker", over those three weeks she'd normally have smoked more than 500 cigarettes. She has saved over $300.
Ms McTear admitted that starting smoking more than 30 years ago was the most stupid thing she'd ever done.
"I didn't start until I was 27 which was total stupid."
She can't even remember what prompted her but suspects she went on a diet and substituted cigarettes for food - but at the end of the diet the cigarettes stayed.
After going cold turkey - something she describes as "very, very painful" - she didn't smoke for two years but then out drinking one night she was offered a cigarette and succumbed.
That was about two years ago.
Over the past three weeks she's been taking Champix, a pill to help quit smoking, which she said "seems to be working".
"Champix takes the edge off the urge and it seems to work on the brain. I'm not quite sure how it works but it does."
Ms McTear said the "quit tracker" she has installed on her computer which keeps a running tally of the number of cigarettes she's not smoked, the amount of money she's saved and the time she would have spent smoking has been a real motivation too.
"It's a good incentive for when I might get tempted."
After smoking nearly a packet of cigarettes a day, Ms McTear said she was shocked to realise she was spending about $20 a day on her "dirty habit".
Her health has also improved significantly even in the three weeks she's stayed away from cigarettes.
"I had a cough for about a year that I could not shake. After two days the cough had gone."
Ms McTear said her health was a big factor in her desire to give up.
"I've had too many friends who have been ill and are ill who are not smokers ... if they are getting sick through a healthy lifestyle what am I going to get through a nasty one."
As part of World Smokefree Day the local Smokefree Auahi Kore Coalition will be celebrating the day outside The Warehouse with free information and resources including nicotine replacement therapy.
GOING SMOKEFREE