My name is Mohammed. I started smoking shisha whilst on holiday in Pakistan. When I returned home, to Wakefield, I was still having the urge to smoke it. A colleague of mine informed me that it is in fact tobacco.
I honestly thought that it was harmless, like a lot of my friends that believed the same.
Smoking shisha had started taking over my life, I was spending one and a half hours, three times a day smoking it. To an extent that I bought my own shisha pipe. I lacked concentration and my family life and business were being affected to a point when shisha was all I thought about.
I made a decision to find help. I joined my local Stop Smoking clinic in Agbrigg, which was nice and local to me. I met Julia, the Advisor, and I told her about my smoking addiction. She was really helpful, and we discussed products that would be able to help me. I decided to try the patches and inhalator. Julia told me to pack my shisha pipe away so there was no temptation, which I did that day. Within 4 weeks I was smoke free and no longer needed the NRT.
The thing that motivated me the most was coming for the CO readings and how happy I was when I reached the green zone!
I really think there should be more information about the effects of smoking shisha as I know a lot of people like me that thought it was a nice harmless way to relax. I am now sleeping much better as I would wake up so much in the night to have a drink as my mouth was so dry and my breathing is back to normal.
**Shisha (also known as hookah or waterpipe).
Shisha tobacco is a specially prepared and is heated to produce smoke which bubbles through a bowl of water and into a long hose-like pipe to be breathed in. Shisha pipes have a mouthpiece fitted to inhale the smoke.
The tobacco can come in different flavours and sometimes it’s mixed with a dark brown sugar (called molasses sugar), often making the smoke smell sweet. It is usually heated by burning wood, coal or charcoal.
