SOME smokers use nicotine patches to quit the habit while others try hypnotherapy, electronic cigarettes and even herbal remedies.

But for Alan Burridge, it’s this hand-painted replica of Eric Clapton’s iconic psychedelic guitar from the ’60s that helps keep him smoke-free.

He bought it in an online auction with the £625 cigarette money he’d saved and it now has pride of place in his home in Poole.

“I have always admired it since 1967,” he explains. “There was a picture of Eric Clapton on the cover of a music magazine.

“It was an iconic image that captured that whole hippy era.

“He was wearing a buckskin jacket with hippy beads and playing that guitar - I even built my own version of it when I was a kid.”

Alan decided to halt smoking in 2006 when he was diagnosed with a heart murmur and told he needed surgery to repair a faulty valve.

“My mum died of a heart condition in 1981 but I didn’t know it was hereditary at the time so I thought it might have been self-inflicted.

“Although I was a committed smoker and drinker I wanted to give myself the best possible chance of survival,” he adds.

But although he’d tried nicotine patches and other anti-smoking aids, it was Alan’s addiction to music that helped keep him on the right track.

“I’ve always had the aspiration to be a rock star but not the aptitude.

“It all started when I went to the Winter Gardens with my mum and dad to see The Shadows. I was about nine at the time and I just fell in love with the sound of the guitar.”

So Alan decided to save the money he would have spent on cigarettes and alcohol over the space of a month and buy himself a treat.

“It’s a good way of saving,” he adds. “I have been putting £100 away each month although now I’m putting £200 away each time, which is probably closer to what I would have spent on booze and cigarettes.”

And now at the age of 57, Alan is finally learning how to play the guitar “I can take one to bits and put it back together again. I know all about ‘em – I just can’t play ‘em so I thought it was time to teach myself.”

But if ever Alan gets the urge for a cigarette he says he goes and looks at his guitar.

“If ever I feel like a cigarette I know I can go and look at it.

“It’s certainly much more attractive to look at than an ash tray!”