Ms Bennett, an Advanced Health Worker in the Homelessness Health Outreach Team at the North West Hospital and Health Service, started smoking later in life than most, in her early 40s following a traumatic incident.

“I can pinpoint the time exactly. After the trauma I remember asking for a smoke. The next day I asked someone to buy me a packet,’’ Ms Bennett said.

In two days she’d got through the 30 cigarettes and was hooked. She’d never been a drinker but she took up smoking. Smoking was her self-medication, and the only way she knew to cope with stress and trauma.

“I had no support back then,” she said.

In her late 40s she gave up, cold turkey, but 18 months later, something else happened in her family and she went back to the cigarettes.

“I was working in health in the Northern Territory and had a high level of responsibility, so there was stress at work,’’ she said.

“Then my son’s family was in trouble with a lot of trauma, drinking and domestic violence, and that went on for 15 years. It was so stressful; I was worried sick for my son and his children, and the only outlet for me was to smoke.”

So, what caused her to quit in July this year?

“I just thought, I’m over this. I hate the taste of the smokes, the cost of them. My thinking process is not as sharp; my mouth’s like an ashtray when I wake up in the morning and it made me short of breath,’’ she said.

But the big lightbulb moment for her was the realisation that stress was causing her to smoke and she had to deal with that.

“I realised I was using smoking as a crutch when I had to deal with the issue that was causing me the angst and stress in my life. And that was my family and their problems,’’ she said.

She laid down some boundaries for her family members.

“Don’t come here to me if you’re angry and upset, downloading all your monkeys onto my back,” she told her family members, banning them from her yard if they came in with alcohol or drugs in their systems or with an angry attitude.

As a wife, mother and grandmother, she said she felt like a cup that had been emptied.

“The mother of a family has to be everything, but I decided to stand up for me, to reclaim who I was,’’ she said.

It wasn’t easy, resisting appeals for help, for money. Nobody likes the word ‘no’, she said.

“But you sometimes have to practise ‘tough love’ to turn your family around,’’ she said.

“Only I myself could stop smoking, but I had to deal with the stress to do that. And I stopped just like that.”

Now she feels stronger, happier and healthier every day. Some family members have noticed the change in her and are following her example, dealing with their problems instead of self- medicating with drugs and alcohol.

An award-winning health worker, she also shares her experience with her clients, who are dealing with the stressors of homelessness, alcohol and other drugs.

“I’m so proud I’ve given up smoking and I’ve had a few bombshells in the months since I’ve quit, but I just deal with them. Smoking isn’t going to help with the stresses in life,’’ she said.

Now in her 60s, Ms Bennett said she’s looking forward to a long and healthy life ahead.

“My father lived until he was 101, both my grandfathers lived till they were 98,’’ she said.

“I’m just beginning the middle stage of my life, and I’m feeling pretty good.”

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