In the last of her updates on her efforts to stop smoking, Becky Midgley is celebrating the fact that she can officially call herself a ‘non-smoker’.

It’s official, I am a non-smoker. I just can’t stop celebrating the fact! People keep asking how it’s going, and the only answer I give is ‘it’s amazing, I feel liberated’.

The group meetings are getting pretty samey; we go in, we say: “Yay! We haven’t smoked all week”, talk about any low points, get new prescriptions, and return to our desks.

I’m guessing they are still going because there is a long-term plan – they are the experts after all, so I will keep showing up and throwing in my self-congratulatory two pennies worth.

Since this week’s meeting though, I have had the worst two days at work in the history of my time here; I’ve never known stress like it, and normally, I don’t do stress. My assistant was away, and all his workload came back on to me so I’ve been pretty hard up against it now for two weeks, and by the time he returned I think I had eventually ran out of steam and the cumulative stress was making my blood boil!

But I didn’t smoke: in times of stress beforehand I would normally throw a tantrum, exhale a huff loud enough for the whole building to hear and storm out and smoke. I didn’t. And I felt really good about that. There was a moment where I felt slightly odd; a bit shaky, a bit distracted, and feeling similar to a rambling insomniac, and then I realised, I wasn’t wearing a nicotine patch. So that’s why I was a nervous wreck! And I guess that’s why it is an eight-week programme with a three-step nicotine patch reduction element, and like I said, the experts say we should take it steady. Note to self – remember your patch in the morning, for everyone’s sake!

Even with this slight wobble, I still didn’t smoke, and I am feeling more and more like a non-smoker as each day passes. Like I said, liberating!