‘It’s not that hard, is it? Just throw that package away and stop’. People with a smoking addiction will no doubt have heard that phrase many times, or said it aloud to themselves. But quitting an addiction still proves very difficult.
Reason for 25 smokers to entrench themselves in the Stoptoberhuis in Vinkeveen for the next few days. One of them is Helga Hatzmann from Hoogersmilde, who really wants to stop after two attempts: “It’s done with that dirty business.”
At the age of twelve she starts with her first cigarette, in the first year of high school. “It was cool then. A pack of shag in the bag, rolling cigarettes”, Hatzmann looks back. An addiction is born. “When I wake up in the morning I walk downstairs, the coffee is ready and I walk outside to smoke a cigarette first.”
Go outside indeed, because there is absolutely no smoking inside the house at Hatzmann. “I am probably a very nagging smoker, because I think it’s dirty. There is no smoking in my house and not in the garden room. I really don’t want that,” explains the resident of Hoogersmilde.
According to Hatzmann, getting rid of her addiction is quite difficult (article continues below the video):