Nearly a third of Colorado’s smokers say the July 1 ban will make them try to quit. Here are ways to tackle the physical and psychological addiction.
If you’re among the many Coloradans who plan to give up cigarettes when the statewide ban on indoor smoking goes into effect Saturday, here’s some expert advice:
Keep at it – most smokers make several serious attempts to quit before finally succeeding. And get outside help – the success rate doubles when you receive coaching and doubles again when you add nicotine patches or other medication.
“The value of using a coach is that the information they provide can help minimize the things that cause most people to fail,” says Karen DeLeeuw, director of the State Tobacco Education and Prevention Partnership, which offers both free counseling and free patches through a telephone hotline at 800-639-7848.
“Remember that you’re dealing with two things – an addiction and a habit,” DeLeeuw advises. “Nicotine replacement therapy helps you deal with the physical addiction, and coaching helps you deal with the habit, the behavior patterns. People who get coaching have a plan in place. They’ve thought about the triggers, and they’re more prepared for the things that might make them want to light up.”
Without support, only 4 to 8 percent of smokers manage to quit the first time they try, says Nancy Montagnoli, coordinator of smoking-cessation classes for Kaiser Permanente. But with medication, she says, the success rate can be doubled, and with counseling added, it typically reaches 20 to 40 percent.
“The good news is, the more often people try, the more likely they are to succeed,” Montagnoli says. “And the more support they get and the longer it continues, the higher the success rate.”
Unlike the Colorado Quitline, which connects smokers with trained counselors who guide them through the quitting process by phone, Kaiser offers face-to-face help.
Its most popular stop-smoking class, free to the public in July, covers such basics as dealing with triggers, avoiding weight gain and using cost as a motivation to quit. It meets from 6 to 8 p.m. or 10 a.m. to noon at various Kaiser facilities, with follow-up support available in a one-hour, drop-in class in “tobacco-free living;” call 303-614-1010 for details.
Kaiser also offers a free “Breathe Easy” kit on smoking cessation, available by mail at 303-344-7771.
Douglas Mattics, a 64-year- old Denver retiree, credits the counseling he received through the quitline – and the 4-week supply of nicotine patches that went along with it – for his success in finally giving up cigarettes this year after nearly four decades as a smoker.
“It takes three weeks before the real craving wears off, but I think the patch has helped 100 percent,” Mattics says. “Now I feel 100 percent better. Food tastes better, I’ve got more energy, and my wife couldn’t believe it, but now that I’ve got my sense of smell back, I can tell when the neighbors are smoking on their porch.”
More than 20,000 people have called the Colorado Quitline to sign up for counseling and patches since the state began offering free nicotine-replacement therapy last December, DeLeeuw reports.
Based on the experience in other states where clean indoor air laws have been enacted, the number of inquiries is expected to surge after July 1.
It’s impossible to say how many of the nearly 600,000 smokers in Colorado may actually try to quit once they can no longer light up in bars and restaurants. But with 25 to 30 percent saying the new law will give them the impetus they need to stop, National Jewish Medical and Research Center, which operates the quitline for Colorado and several other states, will have 15 to 20 additional counselors on call, DeLeeuw says.
“We could have a huge influx of calls because of this,” she says, “but not everybody will call on the first day, and some may quit on their own, so we don’t expect to be overwhelmed.”
Staff writer Jack Cox can be reached at 303-820-1785 or jcox@denverpost.com.
This Week
Starting July 1, smoking
will be banned in most
public spaces. Maybe
now’s the time to quit.
Today: Where to get
the help you need.
Tuesday Play: The great
anti-smoking film festival
Wednesday Food: How
cigarettes ruin dinner in the post-smoking era
Stop-smoking websites
co.quitnet.com
smokefree.gov
americanlegacy.org
Briefly
LOG ON TO KICK BUTTS| Researchers in the Netherlands are developing a virtual counselor, or chatbot, designed to help people quit smoking. The online counselors, at least as conceived by Betsy van Dijk and her colleagues from the University of Twente, would have the advantage of being free and available around the clock. Also, for those shamed by their inability to kick the habit, the chatbots – which would be programmed to respond as human counselors would – would be unable to detect smoke on the breath, skin or clothing.
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE| More than half those responding to a survey conducted by eDiets.com, which bills itself as an online diet and healthy-living destination, indicated that friends try to sabotage their diets when they are trying to lose weight, and more than two-thirds said they believe their friends would like to see them stay overweight. That’s not mere paranoia talking: 47 percent of respondents reported “feeling better” when their friends are overweight. | THE WASHINGTON POST
