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SARAH DALY NEVER thought she’d be able to quit.
“I thought I was a hopeless case,” she admits.
“I was so addicted. I started when I was 17 and I was smoking then until about 2013.”
She catches herself and does a quick moment of mental arithmetic, then adds: “God, I didn’t realise it was that long. I was smoking for 18 years.”
Sarah started off as many people do – as a teenager, with a pack of ten lasting an entire week at first, but soon upping to ten a day when she got into college. By the time she reached the working world, it had increased again to around 20 a day and remained at that level for the next decade and beyond.
“I always wanted to quit,” she says.
“I remember even doing exams in my last year in college smoking, and thinking it would help with my stress levels. But it made it an awful lot worse. From then on I wanted to quit – I just didn’t see how I could how it would be possible.”
Sarah continues:
I felt I couldn’t possibly live without them. From the first cigarette in the morning, before breakfast even, that set the pattern for the day.
It was actually some good news that finally prompted Sarah to stub them out for good – she discovered she was pregnant.
“It forced me to give up. The guilt would have killed me. At this point I had been trying for ten years to give up – I felt panicked, like ‘I can’t do this’. So I rang up the Smoking Cessation Officer in the Rotunda.”
She was so reassuring. She told me that she believed I could quit and I wouldn’t have asked for help if I didn’t really want to stop. She made me feel like I wasn’t a lost cause.
“I thought to myself ‘if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it’.”
Sarah credits the advice and support of the Smoking Cessation Officer, both physical and psychological, with getting her through the uphill battle of first cutting down sharply and then totally giving up.
She understands how insurmountable a task it seems at first for many people, but the strength of will power and support got her through. “I gave up drinking 15 years ago and I found that easier.”
Since that pregnancy, Sarah has twin boys and has successfully stayed off cigarettes for almost four years.
When asked if she feels much better having quit, Sarah is emphatic: “Definitely. Definitely, definitely. My chest is less tight, less wheezy. I get less chest infections and colds. I’ve more energy.”
With the benefit of hindsight, she doesn’t miss smoking at all.
I thought it was calming me, helping my stress levels. You think it’s doing whatever you want to believe it’s doing for you, but actually it’s doing nothing at all.
Cravings have since disappeared for her and she hasn’t looked back – even seeing smoking with new eyes (and nose). “The smell of them, I hate that now. I was in denial before – I thought I was immune to the smell!”
Sarah is kept busy running around after her 3-and-a-half-year-old son as well as her 18 month twin boys, and she laughs: “I’m wrecked. I’m so wrecked. But if I was still smoking, it’d be a hundred times worse.”
“That’s it, really. You want to be around for them. And you want to be healthy for them.”
Quitting is best for you and your baby. Let the HSE help – their free QUIT support programme has already helped thousands to quit successfully. The QUIT Team are standing by, ready to help you.
You can call 1800 201 203, email support@quit.ie, text QUIT to 50100 (it’s free), tweet @HSEQuitTeam or contact them on Facebook at facebook.com/HSEQuit.
Ah trickle down economics. The biggest lie ever sold to the working classes …
@Sos: Something trickles down, that’s why those at the bottom are called peons.
@Sos: Whats worked for you so far?
@Sos: Trickle down theory does have some merit but only in a growing economy where it is prudent to invest rather then horde. What the tories are doing is making sure the wealthy are as comfortable as possible for the coming storm. They’re pulling the ladder up basically.
@Sos: Tickle down economics: https://i.imgur.com/2CqbbcF.jpg
@Sos: … somedays you’re the pigeon, most days you’re the statue – getting s h a t on from a height!!
@Optimus: lol literally not-trickle-down economics has worked so far. The proof is in the pudding, you just need to look to the gains made during the era of new deal liberalism and the stagnation following the introduction of trickle down economics from the Reagan/Thatcher years.
@Will: I agree with the second part, but there is little merit to trickle down economics in all scenarios. Marginal consumption means it’s always very inefficient, some places where the rich spend more it’ll just be a little less efficient.
Because the rich really need help when the going gets tough !!
@Ivor O’Sullivan ☘: Help? You realise it’s their own money. The British Gov has just decided to confiscate less of it. I think having a progressive tax system is fair enough but when we’re taking more than half of what somebody earns I think we’re getting into serfdom territory.
@Damon16: Really?
Half?…..Get out of town…..The uber Rich and most affluent people spend considerable resources avoiding tax or vastly reducing it. Very few rich people pay anywhere near the 50%
@Damon16: The more you earn the more you pay, absolutely. Have tax bands in place to reflect earnings and for the big earners tax the bajasus out of anything above 250k.
That’s the kind of place I want to live in. You can’t take it with you, so share the love to build a better society.
@Ivor O’Sullivan ☘: unfortunately that would backfire big time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve?wprov=sfla1
@Sebastian Manka: However, the shape of the curve is uncertain and disputed among economists
@Ivor O’Sullivan ☘: Who do you think earns more money? The workers making Bentleys, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin etc or the ones making a Fiat 500? If You tax the “bajasus” out of anyone earning a good wedge we will all end up driving a Lada with no airbags or ABS brakes & how do you explain to those master craftsmen making Rollers that they will earn a lot less but they will only have to press a green button & a red one? A Banker picking up a 2 Million bonus in the UK will pay 900K in tax. A banker earning 250K bonus will pay just 112K now which will butter more parsnips? If you are an investment banker that could pick up a bonus of 5 million or a banker that is capped at 250K where would you want to work & pay your taxes? Workers like corporations don’t want to pay any more tax than they have to.
@Joe Thorpe: As long as the Lada drives on good roads and if the driver is an accident, will receive great healthcare, with support to take off work while he recovers, I’d happily drive a Lada.
@Joe Thorpe: that’s not true, Bill Gates didn’t leave the states to found Microsoft when the top tax bracket in the US was 70%. As long as the market is attractive for business, the workers will be there.
If we took 90% of the top 1%’s wealth from them, they’d still be richer than the top 1% of the 20th Century. And most people are struggling to afford to live working full time like crazy. Mad times we’re living in. It’s not sustainable
45bn in tax cuts with interest rates going up, inflation barely coming down. Yeah I think whatever economists are advising them need to rethink there careers.
@Sean Collins: It sort of reminds me of the way asset strippers treat companies just after they get them and before they’re quite ready to bail.
@Sean Collins: I get the feeling they don’t care what the economists think, they’re looking out for their keepers interests, screw the people. I believe Kwasi didn’t wait for the forecasts from the Office for Responsible Budget and just pushed it through.
Of course it did. No help for the hard working ordinary person.
The true meaning of Brexit.
Looking like a good place to go work for formative years …. No stamp duty on houses up to £250,000! nice
@iohanx: Interest rates flying up, currency at lowest level in 37years, cost of borrowing for the country going through the roof and plans to increase government borrowing in 2022/2023 by a whacking great 193billion just to pay for the estimated 150billion price cap.
Yeah, sounds like a super place to spend the formative years of one’s working life…
And Sein Fein want to copy her energy cap proposal. Says it all really.
@DK: nice strawman you’ve made for yourself
@Kevin Burke: Doesn’t make what I said untrue.
Lol , journal readers up in arms about the brits doing things, again.
@Laing: yeah it’s not like anything they do ever affects us. Ya big eejit.
@:
How does this British budget affect ‘us’? What measures would you have liked to have seen implemented, and did the party you voted for run on this mandate?
Typical Tories, all for the benefit of the rich as usual. Lower earners can take a running jump
The gap between rich and poor grows even wider and accelerates even further.
You have to wonder where all this is going to end.
The UK now intends to move their embassy to Jerusalem ? have they no heart !
@Bala mc blaha: I mean the Israeli imperialism is probably inspired by what the British have done hundreds of times throughout history. It’s not a surprise to see their mask slip on occasion showing the monster underneath.
@Bala mc blaha: They ‘gave’ Palestine to them in the first place.
The 45% tax rate is being scrapped and replaced with a 40% rate which won’t kick in until you earn over £250,000 as opposed to the old threshold of £150,000.
Still a typical tory giveaway to the wealthy but saying the 45% rate is being scrapped without saying what’s replacing it is dishonest, click bait journalism.
@Will: finally someone with a bit of sense.
@Will: 40% rate already exists i think
Why would higher paid work in Ireland?
@Mark B: Do you mean why would higher paid people here not just go to the UK instead?
If so, then the answer is easy – The UK economy is goosed, inflation is gone mad, there are strikes and widespread social unrest and divisions in society keep getting deeper.
@Lee King Buckett: Lee if the increase the tax rate for higher earners anymore here they will all start getting paid throu the uk. Lets take 100k for easy maths, one pays over 40k a year in tax, 40k infact just in PRSI. How many of those 40ks are needed to sustain the ever increasing welfare supports that are required for the cost of living crisis? And when multiple 40k’s stop coming in who will pay for them??
@Sarah Lou: there is no 40% rate of PRSI
@michael walsh: apologies for my inaccuracy, which of course was the most import thing in my comment. if one earns 100k in Ireland they pay 38,491 per annum in tax. if that is lost due to tax hikes by even 100 people that is a revenue loss of 3849100 per annum to the government
@Lee King Buckett: Hmmm, your “easy” answer is not that compelling to me. Inflation is a little higher than here but not significantly, there are a few strikes, maybe the odd day of no rail travel. Social unrest? I haven’t seen any significantly worse than here. Divisions in society ain’t that great in Ireland either, but if I were a high earner chances are I wouldn’t worry too much about that. I would like a free NHS though and an economy not totally reliant on foreign investment is probably a bonus also.
But I love to hear people sticking up for the benefits of living in Ireland, it’s a great place and should be appreciated by more here imo.
@Sarah Lou: you’re comparison is very flawed / 100k earner in Ireland averages 39k in tax social insurance and usc / 100k in Uk average around 35k in taxes and social charges etc / it’s a myth to think that just because they are dropping the top rate that all the other taxes and insurance payments are miraculously disappeared / it’s nonsense to think we can just start switching to the Uk and not have taxable income and social charges because they still apply – also your assertion that PRSI is 40% is nonsense
@Mark B: free NHS is not much use when you cannot get an appointment to see a GP in less than two weeks
@Mark B: This is true of any time period and tax system really. All economies are massive by comparison to ours. Guaranteed you will do better if you leave.
They will have to make it up elsewhere and like always, they’ll make cuts to the NHS and other public services.
@Seán Ó Briain:
I’m sure the expense of NI on UK books is also not going unnoticed. Watch this space.
Management of the asylum has changed hands in earnest.
Trickledown Economics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yzeOqV7eKI
:)
Cool, so now we know where Irish middle to high earners will flee to, once the Shinners introduce their “Wealth Tax”
If you were a high earning high tax paying investment banker where would you like to be based? Ireland should be falling over themselves to attract them to this jurisdiction, better they pay a lower tax on a huge uncapped income here instead of no tax on their income being collected here& some other jurisdiction picking it up? We can hardly complain about someone cutting taxes with corporation taxes as low as they are here, will the UK look to move nearer to 15% too? What would the Journal readers be streaking about if they did exactly what we are doing?
@Joe Thorpe: I think the gov really should consider reducing all the tax rates to 20% and see what happens. bet money on it they would have same if not more income from it.
A historian’s budget – what could go wrong?
Fair play to her for cutting the dole for The career dole merchants..its a pity someone wouldn’t have the balls to do it in this welfare state.
How does this British budget affect ‘us’? What measures would you have liked to have seen implemented, and did the party you voted for run on this mandate?
have your say