Fern Britton quit smoking after she was sick in a field ‘overdoing nicotine’
Fern Britton has spoken candidly about how she quit her heavy smoking habit, after an embarrassing moment that involved her being sick in a field.
The TV presenter, 67, said she started smoking during a "very bad period of time", following the deaths of her mother and father in 2018 and 2019, and then the end of her marriage to TV chef Phil Vickery in 2020.
Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival this week, Britton said she fell into an "era of indolence" which led to her staying in bed longer, not "getting dressed or getting showered or cleaning my teeth", eating more and drinking more alcohol.
She also picked up smoking during this time, she revealed in quotes obtained by The Mirror. "The fags, I was so good at it!" Britton said. "And I was 62, 63. I took to it like a duck to water!"
Smoking "punctuated the day", the Celebrity Big Brother star said. "Let’s have a fag, and then what time is it, 4 o’clock? Let’s have a glass of wine."
However, the smoking combined with additional weight gained from eating and drinking more resulted in Britton "not breathing well".
"Looking back, I was in a very bad place and gradually I started to pull myself out of it," she reflected. The turning point came when she was in Cornwall chain-smoking and "overdoing the nicotine" so much it ended up making her sick.
Britton recalled driving home with her niece and a friend when she had to stop the car to throw up in a field. She said: "I was in the hedgerow retching so much that I farted, and all I could hear in the car was the girls saying, ‘Classy lady’ - so I haven’t touched one since."
Since then, Britton said she has put in "a lot of mental effort and reflection and some therapy" to get herself back into a healthy place. She also started running and doing other forms of exercise such as cycling and lifting weights.
The presenter added that she has therapy sessions once a week, which helped her "[transform] my thinking about myself and my life". She now feels "much more relaxed and happy", adding: "Life is good and I’m looking forward to the next phase, whatever it is."
Smoking is highly damaging to health and is the cause of a number of cancers, including throat, lung, kidney and liver cancers. Cancer Research UK published an analysis showing smoking has driven a 17% rise in cancer cases since 2003 in the UK.
But while Britton was able to quit overnight, many smokers find it very challenging to give up cigarettes. This is because smoking is a nicotine addiction, Dr Deborah Lee previously told Yahoo UK.
"The craving for another cigarette starts as soon as the last cigarette is stubbed out. Many smokers say they can’t quit because of their nerves. In fact, it’s the nicotine withdrawal that causes the anxiety and mood swings, and cigarettes are the cause, not the solution to the problem. Stopping smoking has huge benefits for your mental health," she said.
Earlier this year, Loose Women star Coleen Nolan opened up about how she smoked for 40 years until a health scare led her to finally quit.
The 58-year-old told The Mirror she developed a chest infection that left her struggling to breathe. She reflected on how difficult it was to give up smoking because she had been smoking 35 cigarettes a day since she was 12 years old.
However, following an emergency appointment with her doctor, Nolan said it felt "like the universe was saying, ‘This is your last chance’".
There are a number of free resources available to help you quit smoking. You can also contact a stop smoking adviser, who can help you make a quitting plan and discuss NHS endorsed stop smoking aids to give you the best chance of success.
Read more about quitting smoking:
Eight things that happen to your body as soon as you quit smoking (WalesOnline, 2-min read)
The total cost of smoking is the same as 4 new cars (Yahoo Life UK, 6-min read)
One million people in England who never regularly smoked are now vaping (EuroNews, 4-min read)
