Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 16, 1990 TAG: 9007140337
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jane E. Brody
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The incentives to end your affair with nicotine have never been greater.
Nationally, less than three adults in 10 smoke.
In many social circles, less than 10 percent of people still smoke, and even fewer dare to smoke in public.
And the places where smokers are permitted to light up are growing ever smaller and farther between.
Restrictive legislation and public pressures are increasingly turning smokers into social pariahs who must sneak off by themselves or ask others for permission to smoke.
The time is ripe to expedite the goal of the former surgeon general, C. Everett Koop: to create a smoke-free society by the year 2000.
The economy can no longer afford the 1,000 deaths a day and the even greater number of serious illnesses directly attributable to cigarette smoking.
The majority of Americans who are non-smokers are no longer willing to have their own health jeopardized by the noxious habit of the minority.
The evidence that passive smoking is harmful is so convincing that the Environmental Protection Agency now lists it as a serious environmental hazard.
But how can so many people be weaned from cigarettes?
Almost every smoker questioned in surveys believes the habit is personally harmful, and more than four smokers in five express a desire to quit.
Most have tried one or more times to break their addiction to nicotine; alas, they relapse, usually within a few days or weeks, but sometimes years later.
Typically it takes four to 10 attempts before a potential quitter finally makes it stick.
It is certainly not easy - many heavily addicted smokers say quitting was the hardest thing they have ever done, but all who really want to quit can find a way to become former smokers forever.
As one exasperated would-be quitter put it:
"There are as many ways to quit smoking as there are people who have quit, and I've tried them all! Now, I've got to find the one that was tailor-made for me."
In a fascinating and inspiring book, "The Last Puff" (W.TH W. Norton, $18.95), Dr. John W. Farquhar and Dr. Gene A. Spiller give 30 former smokers a chance to share the secrets of their success.
The stories, told by men and women of all ages and walks of life, can be a source of inspiration, hope and helpful hints for smokers who have, like the storytellers, made repeated failed attempts to quit.
Each found a particular trigger that prompted yet another effort, this time for keeps.
One man, a three-pack-a-day smoker for 30 years, finally quit cold turkey after his wife agreed to the purchase of a fancy new car if he agreed never to smoke in it.
Then, as soon as the car arrived, the couple left on a three-week, cross-country trip in it.
One woman, a college teacher and writer for whom words and cigarettes were intricately entwined, finally decided to quit for good after seeing a smoker who appeared much older than her years and was beginning to "look like an ashtray" with wrinkled, gray skin, yellow teeth and fingers, and thin, limp hair.
Some were inspired to quit after watching a relative or friend die of lung cancer or struggle to live despite emphysema or recover after a heart attack or bypass surgery.
Others were motivated by a positive self-image: "If I am really a man, I can quit on my own."
Or they imagined how much better they would look and smell once free of tobacco pollution.
But what nearly all had in common was a long "incubation period" - usually years of thinking they wanted to get the tobacco monkey off their backs, plus innumerable failed attempts.
They learned what didn't work and, on their final attempt, many tried a new tack.
For Elton W., a public relations specialist, it was a new attitude that spelled success.
"In all the previous attempts," he said, "I acted out of a spirit of self-sacrifice. I was giving up something that I liked and quitting was unpleasant. I felt like a martyr."
On his final attempt 20 years ago, he changed his perspective.
He practiced a new identity: that of a non-smoker.
He imagined himself in all kinds of situations in which someone might offer a cigarette and then said out loud, "No thanks, I don't smoke." Not "I'm trying to quit" but "No, I don't smoke."
by CNB