{"id":521060,"date":"2026-04-09T08:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T08:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/521060\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T08:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T08:16:07","slug":"smoker-says-watching-mums-death-from-lung-disease-made-him-quit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/521060\/","title":{"rendered":"Smoker says watching mum’s death from lung disease made him quit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott said smoking was “everywhere” when he was growing up, with both his mum and dad smoking cigarettes and his grandad smoking a pipe.<\/p>\n

“Everybody smoked, it was in every house you went in and on their tellies, so I wanted to know what was so good about it – and I quite enjoyed it,” he said.<\/p>\n

In the early 2000s, however, his mother Linda Haigh was diagnosed with COPD as a result of her smoking.<\/p>\n

COPD is used to categorise a group of common lung conditions which cause breathing difficulties, mainly affecting middle-aged and older adults who smoke, according to the NHS., external<\/a><\/p>\n

The damage to the lungs is permanent, but treatment can help slow down the progression of the condition.<\/p>\n

“Mum always had a smoker’s cough, but from her mid-60s, she was constantly in and out of hospital with chest infections. We always wondered when was going to be the last time,” said Scott.<\/p>\n

“She struggled for years, but she struggled with stopping smoking more. She tried a few times but said it was the only thing she’d got – she was stubborn and wouldn’t be told.”<\/p>\n

In September last year, she died from the condition.<\/p>\n

“I’m not going to say I fully resent her decision, but because of smoking and that she wouldn’t stop, she isn’t with us,” he said.<\/p>\n

It caused him to see the parallels with his own health and lifestyle.<\/p>\n

“I’ve also had a bad cough forever, I’ve cracked a few ribs through coughing, and it’d got to the point where I was blacking out from coughing too hard,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I wasn’t bothered about stopping smoking, but when I watched my mum die, it prompted me to start taking it seriously and go for it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scott said smoking was “everywhere” when he was growing up, with both his mum and dad smoking cigarettes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-521060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}