Bobby Kuptana started smoking around nine years of age. 

He managed to give up cigarettes for a few years but resumed the harmful habit again at age 12 or 13.

"I don't know. It's just from watching all the adults and everyone else smoking," the Cambridge Bay resident said of the influences surrounding him at the time. 

Now 57, Kuptana has been smoke-free for close to seven years, but not without adversity. 

 "It was kind of hard at first," he acknowledged in regards to quitting cigarettes. "I used it more or less for stress reliever and to escape from everything."

It was a fateful trip to a dentist that proved to be a catalyst in Kuptana beating his addiction to nicotine. He had a tooth removed and the dentist advised him not to smoke for at least a day afterwards. 

"The next morning, I went outside and I had one puff. It didn't taste good to me. I decided, I'm going to throw this cigarette and that's it. I had enough of smoking cigarettes," he recalled. 

The cost factor and his lack of a job at the time added considerable pressure, he admitted. He wanted to ensure he was spending as much of his money as possible on his children, he said.

Even though his decision was firm, it was not an easy process.

"For about a month, I did the routine though of going outside on the steps. Every night and right as soon as I got up in the morning and I felt like smoking, I would go outside and just stand out there and look around. After I felt better, I would go in. I would do that like seven, eight times a day," he said, noting that he came to simply appreciate standing out there admiring the sky and stars and breathing the fresh air.

However, his common-law partner still smoked and he saw other residents in the five-plex where he lived out puffing on cigarettes occasionally.

"Yeah, it was hard but I just drank a lot of water, drank a lot of tea," he said, adding that those were better options than eating too much, which he initially started to do.

His physical withdrawals from cigarettes included hot and cold sweats. His mood was affected as well, he said.

"I would be unhappy. It's like my body wanted me to go back to it," he said.

Several weeks later, Kuptana was bringing up brown mucous as his lungs were starting to clear, but he found that his food tasted better and his breathing wasn't as laboured.

"It was kind of hard for a while but I got through it," he said. "I'm doing good so far."

He had a momentary lapse around three years ago when he was struggling one day and decided to resort to smoking as a stress reliever. "But it didn't help me to feel better, so I didn't want to go back to that," he said, adding that he's also been sober for close to 15 years.

He's come to hate the smell of cigarette smoke. It gives him headaches.

"I can't stand being around the scent of smoke anymore, you know, from the tobacco," he said. "My sinuses and my smell is so much 100 per cent better. I couldn't believe that. Everything has changed."

He sure doesn't mind the cash saved from not purchasing cigarettes anymore either.

"That's lots of money if you add it up in a year. You can put that money towards something a little more worthwhile than that," he said. "I know people can do it too if they just put their mind and put their heart to it because it's going to help them stay alive a little bit longer if they're not touching these things."

National Non-Smoking Week in Canada is marked from Jan. 19-25, including Weedless Wednesday on Jan. 22.

-with files from Kira Wronska Dorward