My wife has been a heavy smoker for many years. After a friend died from lung cancer she finally decided recently that she wanted to give up, but she didn't do anything about it. A few days after she had said that she was going to quit I told her that she had until the end of the week to stop smoking. After that she would receive one stroke of the cane for every cigarette she smoked.

I am retired and we are together all the time so I can monitor her smoking exactly. As I control the money and shopping I also know exactly how many she has. If she gives any away to friends she still gets the stroke and if I catch her receiving a cigarette from anybody else, that is added on to the count.

She usually smokes about 30 a day so this was going to be a big deal from the very beginning. I issued the ultimatum on Wednesday. By Friday she had not reduced by more than one or two a day and I reminded her that she was going to get an almighty caning on Sunday if she didn't sort herself out very soon. She knows that I always mean what I say and that she always gets whatever punishment is coming to her, but until then I don't think she had really taken in the implications.

On Saturday she cut down to one pack of twenty and when we went to bed I gave her a last reminder that from midnight on each cig would be a cane stroke. She shuddered just a little and slid down the bed to comfort me before we went to sleep.

I needed help so I called in my mates who were happy to help with the training and receive the proper thanks.

Smoking is finished, but what about her excess weight?