Bestselling author Liz Nugent has told RTÉ Radio 1's Ryan Tubridy Show that she is doing "the worst thing" during the Covid-19 emergency - smoking again.
Nugent is back on her feet promoting her new book Our Little Cruelties after suffering a severe knee injury which kept her in hospital for 12 weeks.
As she continues her recovery at home, she told Ryan Tubridy that she is finding it "very hard" to concentrate on a new play that she is writing during the Covid-19 emergency.
"I'm doing the worst thing, I'm smoking," she continued.
"I'm back smoking. It's the most ridiculous thing. I used to have a cigarette when I had a drink - only then. But when I was in the Royal Hospital in Donnybrook, the Occupational Therapist came to me one day, and because I had ticked the form that said I smoked and I drank occasionally, she said, 'I have to bring you outside for a cigarette...'
"And I said, 'Sorry?' And she said, 'Well, for health and safety reasons we have to make sure that you can light the cigarette, smoke it and extinguish it without setting fire to yourself. So I have to bring you out'.
"So I went out - she wheeled me out in a wheelchair - to this freezing cold shed and I had a cigarette. And then it became a habit, because I just thought, 'Well, at least I'm getting out of the hospital!'. I used to wheel myself every night and have three cigarettes in a row. And now I am smoking without drinking, because I can't drink because of the medication I'm on!
"So I've gone from being a 'drinking smoker' to pretty much an all-day smoker, which is just the worst thing at this time. I have to cut it out... I have to just stop."
Liz Nugent's new book, Our Little Cruelties, is out now from Penguin Ireland.
