Table 2.

Participants experiences of smoking cessation attempts

Justification for continued smoking

'It's the stress factors, you're stressed out because you smoke so you smoke more.'

'There are people that you do know who have never touched a cigarette and they die of cancer.'

'You're going to die whether you smoke or not.'

Concerns about quitting smoking/previous quit attempts

'The mental obsession is there all the time .....you need a fag, you need a fag, want a fag.'

'The first week was terrible because I got really violent .. ..'

'...I know when I stop smoking the weight goes on.'

'You go and fetch the paper.....you buy ten fags and hide them because you don't want her to think that you've cracked, you haven't really cracked because you haven't even started, so you're lying to yourself at the start.'

'You keep trying and trying, but you just get fed up because you know what's coming don't you?'

Willpower

'I know all the statistics, I know all the stuff that's there to know and I'm a strong willed person, anything else I've overcome in my life, massive problems and all the rest of it, but one of the things has been a constant through my life is the smoking, it's that element of .... having tried and failed.'

'......okay, it sounds a bit crude but if I've got diarrhoea, all the willpower in the world doesn't stop me from running to the toilet, that's like willpower, I can be determined not to smoke again and I just make myself a failure, and it's not even my failure, it's everybody else outside saying ....you're a weak person for not being able to do this.'