Tiffany’s Story

Tiffany smoked cigarettes, even though her mother, a smoker, died of lung cancer when Tiffany was 16. “Watching her suffer was awful,” she says. “I felt alone and scared.” But still, Tiffany started smoking in her late teens. “A lot of kids I went to school with were smoking, and I wanted to fit in,” she remembers. She quit smoking in 2012, when her daughter turned 16.

As part of her plan to quit, Tiffany changed her morning ritual. Instead of getting up early to drink coffee and smoke, she enjoyed an extra hour of sleep. She reached out to family and friends for support. They sent cards of praise and called and reminded her of all the reasons to never smoke again. Her most enduring motivation has been her daughter. “I didn’t want my daughter to think, ‘Wow, my mother loves cigarette smoking more than she cares about me.’”