Watch Karen and Carol’s Story

Carol Downing and Karen Craven, sisters from Doncaster, both started smoking around nine or ten.

Carol, who has lived in Doncaster all her life, started smoking after taking one of her granddad’s cigarettes. Karen, who is a few years younger than her sister, remembers crawling into her parents’ bedroom and taking a cigarette to smoke on the way to school, noting that smoking was a thing that everybody did. She had attempted to quit before, but major life events, such as her husband’s and her father’s deaths, always triggered her to start again.

We stopped a couple of times. When we started again, something always triggered it off.

Karen’s most recent attempt to quit was spurred by a near-death experience. While in Spain with Carol, she became so ill with a spinning head that she stayed in bed for a week. Her sister brought her home and took her straight to the hospital. Karen was diagnosed with a chest infection and issues with her lungs, liver, and kidneys, and two days later, with legionella. In the hospital, Karen was offered patches. She had tried quitting with Champix twice before, but this time, she used patches and is now smokefree.

During Karen’s hospital stay, Carol decided to quit to support her sister. She went to her local stop smoking service and asked for a prescription to Champix, which has helped her stay quit. Her advisor, Stevie, was also instrumental in Carol staying quit. Since quitting, she feels more relaxed and can breathe more easily.

My advisor Stevie, she’s a lovely lady and she would help me with anything. She was one the best counsellors that I’ve ever seen.

The sisters go everywhere together. Since stopping smoking, they have saved a lot of money, enough to go on holiday, go out for food and go on day trips together. The sisters encourage and support each other, advising others who want to quit to “go together”. 

If you don’t try, you’ll never know.