Leonie Burge meets all the criteria of a 'non-smoker” – but she's realistic.

After three months off the fags she's still fighting the urge, still arm-wrestling with the evil little voice that taunts her with the desire for a cigarette.

Leonie Burge feels great after ditching her 40-year smoking habit last October. Photo by Bruce Barnard.

'I am not ready to claim victory,” says the reforming smoker after 40 years a slave to tobacco.

'But I do know the craving for a cigarette is not as strong.”

Since she quit her $40-a-week habit, Leonie had piled on eight kilograms.

'But I will happily wear that because everyone is telling me how well I look.

'Smoking suppresses the urge to eat. Well I'm eating now, eating often and enjoying the taste of things untainted by tobacco.

'I'm loving it.”

And with the eating comes the exercise.

When The Weekend Sun first met Leonie during the ‘Stoptober' quit smoking promotion, she could huff, puff and wheeze just a 100 metres up the road.

This morning she was off on a two-kilometre romp to the shops and back with daughter Billie.

And Billie is rapt because her Mum unwittingly taught her some valuable lessons about toxicity of tobacco.

'She told me my habit taught her never to go near cigarettes or be around second-hand smoke.”

It's a tough but effective way to learn a life lesson.

And Leonie's had time to reflect on her behaviours as a smoker – and there is none she is proud of.

'The 30 gram $40-pack of tobacco and rolling papers were the first purchases in weekly supermarket shopping trolley.

'What money was left over was spent on food and essentials – they came second.

'I didn't think about it at the time but smoking is a selfish habit.”

Leonie calculates she's saved $500 since quitting. 'It's money that's now spent on better things – things for all the family.”

She's also aware of other changes in her behaviour – she's no longer creating opportunities to have a fag.

'Nowadays I only have to gather my car keys and wallet when I leave the house – there's no place and no thoughts for smokes.

'I used to race out to the car so I could roll a quick cigarette.”

Leonie's been pleasantly surprised and inspired by the number of people who read her story in The Weekend Sun in October 2014.

'Some of them I don't even know. But they all say ‘I hear you've given up the smokes'.”

Are they waiting for Leonie to fail?

'Nuh. They are just keeping an eye on me and saying: ‘Good on yuh, well done!'”

Those who've suffered withdrawal from nicotine addiction will sympathise with what she might be enduring – fatigue, headaches, dry mouth, coughing, irritability, depression or anxiety.

But Leonie has a good humour and resolve. 'It's a small price for a longer, more enjoyable life and money in the bank.”

For those who've never smoked it's a mammoth battle she's engaged in – and one she hopes she's on the brink of winning.

Meanwhile the goal of a Smokefree Aotearoa, whereby less than five per cent of the population smokes, is just 10 years away.

Half a million Kiwis have 'given up” in the last decade and there's plans to help even more kick the habit.

Give up today and a pack-a-day smoker will save $68,000 by 2025.

And they'll have a much better chance to enjoy the money. The risk of lung cancer will be less than half that of a person who continues to smoke.