Kicking cigarettes is hard. Actress Linda Robson, 57, tells the Sunday Mirror how she finally stubbed out the habit

I spent 18 months trying to hide my smoking habit from my family.

After 17 years off the fags, I’d had a sly puff at my 50th birthday party and within a week I was smoking 40 Marlboro menthol a day.

After being denied for so long, it was like I couldn’t get enough.

But I couldn’t tell my husband and three children I’d picked up the habit again because smoking, heart disease and cancer were an unhappy part of our family history.

I’d had my first cigarette on a school trip when I was 12 or 13.

I was very young but nobody really knew the health implications back then. It was seen as cool rather than dangerous.

My parents both smoked ­unfiltered cigarettes which took a big toll on their health.

My mum Rita had two heart attacks directly due to smoking. One was just before my husband Mark and I married in 1990 and we had to put back our wedding.

She was lucky to survive them but took medication for the rest of her life until she died of cancer in 2012, aged 75.

My dad Bobby wasn’t so lucky.

He died within a week of being diagnosed with lung cancer in 1997 , shortly after my youngest daughter was born.

He was only 57 – the same age I am now. It was when he died that I’d given up cigarettes the first time round.

( 
Image:
ITV)
But aged 50, they had caught me in their grip again.

To hide my secret vice, I sprayed myself with perfume, peeled oranges to cover the smell of smoke on my fingers and took the dog for long walks so I could have a sneaky puff.

Soon it started to affect every aspect of my life. Wondering when I could sneak a sly cigarette dominated my thoughts.

One day my son Louis, 24, caught me smoking in the garage and told me he wouldn’t tell anyone as long as I stopped. I felt like a naughty child and promised I would – but still carried on.

I was at a family wedding a few months later when my daughter Bobbie, 19, looked through a patio window and caught me puffing away.

She burst out crying, asked how I could start smoking again and accused me of not caring about the family by putting my health at risk.

I promised I would stop but, as anyone who smokes knows, I was in the grip of addiction.

Another time I took the dog for a walk and my husband Mark unexpectedly walked round the corner with Bobbie.

I quickly put the cigarette – still lit – in my jacket pocket and set my coat alight.

I’d been well and truly caught but it wasn’t until my eldest daughter Lauren, 32, sat me down for a serious talk in 2010 that I finally quit.

She told me she was trying to get pregnant and wouldn’t let me look after her baby if I didn’t stop smoking.

That was the push I needed.

I went to the GP for advice, joined a local support group and started taking a nicotine nasal spray.

It wasn’t easy but I feel so much healthier now.

When I was smoking I had that horrible little cough you get in the mornings, I was out of breath and my skin looked dreadful.

I’m so glad I’m not only able to hold my three-year-old granddaughter Lila but that Lauren lets me look after her because I kept my promise to give up.

Unfortunately, I’m still addicted to nicotine replacement therapy and need to have a few puffs of a nasal spray whenever I’m stressed.

I had to take the spray with me on I’m A Celebrity in 2012. But my doctor says it’s okay as long as it keeps me away from 40 a day.

Nicotine addiction is a powerful thing. I’d never tell smokers that it was easy to quit, but it has been worth it.