Support Smokers Who Want to Quit

Tobacco use is an addiction that often requires more than just an individual desire to overcome. Community support and an environment that minimizes or eliminates behavioral triggers can provide the tipping point that leads to success.

These actions also support teens’ efforts to make the healthy choice and not start or continue using tobacco.

• Community Support: Help distribute information about quitting smoking. A majority of smokers want to quit. Making information easily accessible is a great way to support smokers who want to quit, show concern and community involvement, and be part of T-Free Zone program.
• Environmental Change:
  • Limiting the places that smoking is permitted helps smokers decrease tobacco consumption. It is easier for a smoker to choose not to smoke a cigarette when (1) it is increasingly inconvenient, (2) a behavioral trigger is elimiated, and (3) a preference for a smoke free environment becomes more normal and widespread. Use T-Free Zone stickers to show your preference for a smoke free environment.
  • Minimizing the amount of advertising in a retail setting helps teens and smokers avoid the pull to buy tobacco products. Familiar logos and colors trigger habits and evoke brand loyalties that promote sales and encourage teens to start or continue smoking, and make it difficult for smokers who want to quit to deny their addiction. [Click here for more information about the impact of tobacco advertising.]

The Price of tobacco addiction.

 

Giving an edge to smokers who want to quit.

Ted Schiele, Health Department staff
From the Dec. 2007 issue of "Corridors", the newsletter for Tompkins County employees

Grocery stores invented the “No Candy” aisle — checkout lanes without candy displays — to give parents the edge over children who tend to grab for any candy within their reach. “Smoke free” areas — both indoors and outdoors — give an edge to smokers who are trying to quit. Both examples rely in part on the “out of sight, out of mind” concept of triggering behaviors, and both rely on community actions that help individuals take the small steps necessary to achieve small, or big successes.

In a majority of cases, smokers who are trying to quit are looking for every edge available to help them succeed. The New Year provides an edge in the tradition of resolutions for a fresh start. With so many focused on making personal changes, January is a perfect time to set a quit date, the first big step in quitting smoking.

Another edge for smokers who want to quit is to get help from a trained counselor, and for those in our area a good place to start is the telephone. Call the NYS Smokers’ Quitline for great advice and yet another edge: a free starter kit of nicotine replacement therapy (patches.) Call 1-866-NY-QUITS (1-866-697-8487.)

In the end however, it may be that the community is the most powerful edge for a smoker who wants to quit! For example, the county’s voluntary T-Free Zone program for smoke free areas at building entryways may help avoid urges triggered around groups of smokers, break a habit of lighting up on the way out the door, and reinforce a new self image as a “non-smoker.”

Smoking is a powerful addiction that takes planning and practice to break. The New Year is an ideal time both for personal change and for community actions that support an individual’s goal for a healthier, more satisfying life.

Click here for Quitline phone numbers.

 

Quitting takes planning and practice

From the June 2007 edition of “Corridors”, the newsletter for Tompkins County employees
By Ted Schiele, Health Department staff

According to a recent survey, there are around 16,000 adult smokers living in Tompkins County, and half of them want to quit. So why, with cigarettes costing upwards of $5.50 a pack, and the widely recognized impact that smoking has on health, are there 8,000 adults in our county for whom quitting cigarettes may be as desirable as winning the lottery, yet seem about as unlikely?

First is the nicotine, the addictive power of which is often compared to that of heroin. Next, there is habit. A cup of coffee, talking on the phone, driving, leaving work for a break or at the end of the day. All of these actions can trigger an automatic reach for a cigarette.

Then there’s the emotional tie. The old song says, “when this old world is getting you down,” go “up on the roof!” And the dog is said to be our “best friend.” But for the smoker — and I was one for 20 years — none of that beats a cigarette for setting everything that’s wrong, right again!

Finally, there is the social environment. Ads for cigarettes still seem to be everywhere; at gas stations and convenience stores, in magazines, even at some community events. In movies and on TV the coolest, most alluring characters are still smokers.

So, what’s the answer? Of course, there is not one, sure-fire fix. Here are some things to work with:

• Plan and practice for how to avoid the triggers linked with lighting up. Stand while talking on the phone instead of sitting with a cigarette. Leave by a different door at work in order to break the behavioral connection. Clean your car’s interior top-to-bottom as part of a pledge to make your vehicle a smoke free zone. Do the same at home.
• Confront the emotional ties. Talk to friends or family, and to your doctor. The emotional letting go can be the most complicated part of the quitting process, and seeking support from others can be the make-or-break difference. Try a telephone counseling service or internet support site.
• Tackle the nicotine with nicotine replacement treatments (NRT) such as the patch. NRTs do not cause cancer, are not addictive, and are available over-the-counter. A free start-up supply of NRT is available for most smokers from the NYS Smokers’ Quitline. Ask your doctor about other stop-smoking medications.
• Reach out to the community! Ask others to not smoke around you in building entryways, parks or pedestrian areas. Find the gas stations and convenience stores that display little or no tobacco advertising and shop there. Set a quit date, tell friends, family and co-workers, and ask for their support.

Contrary to common belief, smoking is not always a personal choice and is rarely only an individual’s problem. Tobacco is highly addictive, and everyone pays the price in higher health insurance premiums, taxes for Medicaid, and lost productivity. Smokers who want to quit need — and should be given — the support of all members of the community.

 
Resources:

• New York State Smokers’ Quitline. 1-866-NY-QUITS (toll free 1-866-697-8487). Free 2-week supply of nicotine patches available for all eligible smokers. Call and speak to a cessation specialist for details. Free telephone counseling service available 9am-9pm weekdays, 9am-1pm weekends. Recorded “quit tips” available 24/7. Also online, www.nysmokefree.com.
• United Health Services Nurse Direct cessation counseling. 607-763-5555. Free telephone counseling service provided by UHS Healthy Living Center, Johnson City.
• Primary care physicians. Many area doctors are partnering with regional NYS Department of Health Cessation Centers to provide improved cessation counseling services.
• Tobacco Free Tompkins. The Health Department’s community-wide effort to fight tobacco addiction. 274-6712 and www.tompkins-co.org/tobaccofree.