I ended up accessing the stop smoking service after an incident with a potential gas leak.
It all started with a smell coming from the kitchen and I eventually called 111 for advice. This all happened after midnight, but the smell was very worrying, and I had to question whether or not we were safe. To our surprise, the fire service came out, even though it was now the early hours of the morning. I live in Illingworth and the fire crew were from our local fire station, which is probably why it was all dealt with so quickly. They came to the house with all sorts of equipment to try and locate this gassy smell. They agreed it was worth them coming out, but couldn’t find the source, so put it down to possibly the sewage drain or a gas leak, though nothing that gave unsafe readings. They gave us lots of advice and support and encouraged us to contact Yorkshire Water and the boiler company and get them to check it out to make sure nothing was leaking, but everything was signed off as safe.
The fire service asked us all sorts of questions and even put up a CO monitor and smoke detector, which was great. During the conversation, they asked if anyone smoked, which I did at the time. I explained that I’ve always smoked at the back door, never in the house. One of the guys asked if I had ever thought about stopping smoking. I wasn’t thinking about stopping at the time, but I thought yeah, I’ve thought about it a few times. He asked if he could pass on my details to the Calderdale stop smoking team, so I agreed. The next day, I had a phone call from Yorkshire Smokefree, who knew all about my meeting with the fire service and again asked if I wanted to stop smoking.
The appointment was made and, if I’m honest, I wasn’t even sure if I would turn up, but we agreed a date and that was that. I then received a text message with my appointment, and I thought I can’t not go, I’ll hear them out and see what happens.
I attended my first appointment, and they offered me various options to support me with putting the cigarettes down and I ended up choosing a vape.
I had my problems in the beginning, but that soon got sorted and, reluctantly, I set a quit date and haven’t looked back since. It’s early days, but I’m coming to terms with vaping and it’s definitely better for me than smoking cigarettes, which cause me all sorts of health problems.
I never set out to stop smoking but here I am, weeks later, a non-smoker, all from a visit from Illingworth fire station.
