Stoptober
Quitting smoking at 62 this Stoptober
A York grandfather feared smoking would shorten his life. That fear has a number.
Written by Lee H. Last reviewed 7 October 2026.
This Stoptober, City of York Council shared the story of Kevin. He is 62, started smoking at 18, and at his heaviest smoked 80 cigarettes a day. He quit on 31 December 2025 with patches, a vape and support from the York Health Trainers Stop Smoking Service. He wanted more time with his children and grandchildren, and he believes he would not have lived another five years had he kept smoking.
Plenty of smokers carry the same fear and never get an answer to it. How much shorter? That question can be answered.
The cost of one cigarette
A 2025 study from University College London, published in Addiction, estimated that each cigarette costs a man about 17 minutes of life and a woman about 22. One cigarette barely registers. Years of them add up fast.
Take a man who has smoked 20 a day for 40 years. That comes to about 292,000 cigarettes, or a little over nine years of life. The total levels off at the heaviest extremes, because lifetime smokers lose about ten years on average, so the figure is never stretched past that.
What quitting gives back
Quitting returns a share of that time, and the share depends on when you stop. A large 2013 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found:
- Quitting before about 35 returns nearly all of it.
- Quitting in your forties returns about 90%.
- Quitting in your fifties returns about 60%.
- Quitting in your early sixties returns about 40%.
The man in our example, quitting at 62, can expect a little over three of his lost years back. They do not arrive all at once. Recovery runs fastest at the start, and about eight months come back in the first smoke-free year alone.
Whatever your age, the return on quitting is never zero.
A slip costs that day, not your progress
Stoptober asks for 28 days, and the campaign reports that people who make it that far are five times more likely to stay quit. Many people slip along the way. A cigarette on a bad day costs the minutes of that cigarette. Healing your body has already done stays done. Count your smoke-free days in total, not just your current streak.
Where to get help
If you live in York, the Health Trainers Stop Smoking Service offers free one-to-one support and nicotine replacement products. Elsewhere in England, the NHS Stoptober campaign and your local stop smoking service are the best places to start. Support plus nicotine replacement works far better than willpower alone.
See your own number
The Long View works this out for you. Enter your age, sex, how long you have smoked and how much. It shows the average life expectancy for someone your age and sex, the time smoking has cost so far, and the time you win back every day you stay quit.
The figures above are a motivational estimate built from population averages. They are not a prediction about you, they do not diagnose, treat or prevent any condition, and this is not medical advice. Talk to a doctor or a stop smoking service about quitting.
Sources
- Jackson, S. E., Jarvis, M. J. and West, R., "The price of a cigarette: 20 minutes of life?", Addiction, 2025.
- Jha, P. et al., "21st-Century Hazards of Smoking and Benefits of Cessation in the United States", New England Journal of Medicine, 2013.
- City of York Council, "York grandfather who feared smoking would shorten his life urges others to quit this Stoptober", October 2026.