Follow your stars to quit smoking

WANT to quit smoking for the New Year? - then why not follow the example of some of your favourite soap stars.

Famous faces from Coronation Street visited Dublin yesterday to help smokers kick the habit.

Statistics show that 17 people die from smoking-related illnesses every day. Despite the grim statistics, only 3% of people who actually set out to quit smoking in the New Year will succeed.

Helping launch a range of anti-

smoking products, Simon Gregson, best known as Street Cars co-owner Steve McDonald and Suranne Jones, who plays his wife, Karen, said they both plan to kick the habit, on and off screen.

Suranne plans to smoke herbal cigarettes until the scriptwriters can write out her character’s habit as well. “Hopefully, they will write it in about my character quitting as well. We’ll see how it goes,” she said.

Simon will be going ‘cold turkey’ and relying on his willpower to pull him through.

Suranne, who smokes between 16 and 20 cigarettes a day, intends using a nicotine-replacement patch, a treatment that helped her father quit smoking two years ago.

Dr Stephen Murphy advised those serious about quitting to consult their GP for advice and support.

“Many smokers don’t believe they have the willpower but you need a lot of willpower to ignore all the evidence that’s out there to tell you that you really need to quit.

“There’s many different kinds of smokers and it’s important to tailor advice and help each individual. GPs have a real interest in helping their patients to stop smoking and research has shown that their intervention more than doubles a smoker’s chance of quitting,” he said.

Sally Lindsay, who plays Rovers’ Return bar manager Shelly Unwin, said she hated kissing Chris Gascoine, who plays her on-screen fiance Peter Barlow, because he was a smoker and always reeked of tobacco. “I only ever give him a quick peck on the cheek, if I can get away with it,” said Sally, who gave up smoking years ago.