Frank Vitale: Individuals will tell you that they feel that smoking helps them deal with the stress in their life, keep their weight down or just help them regulate their mood. All of these beliefs, every single one of them are myths. It’s very important when somebody’s quitting to identify what that barrier is, what that belief is that the person has and deal with it.
Frank Vitale, M.A.
National Director, Pharmacy Partnership for Tobacco Cessation
Frank Vitale: Nobody’s ever going to quit because somebody else wants them too. They have to find a reason within themselves. In Oded’s case, it was his father. He realized and understand very clearly that his father was dying because of a smoking related illness. There is no one best way to quit smoking.
Smoking has two parts. It’s a physical addiction and a habit. Quitting must have two parts and that is you must break the habit, you must deal with all of those triggers, urges that you have to smoking and learn to cope with those without a cigarette and then you must end your physical addiction to nicotine.
In that case, that’s where you want to use FDA Approved Smoking Cessation medications. All of the products are excellent but they appeal to different kinds of people. The patch for instance is good for someone who doesn’t want to think about anything and just wants something very easy to use. The gum or the lozenge on the other hand are excellent for people who want to control their therapy and who want to do something every hour or so throughout the day to fill up time.
Quitting Now
Frank Vitale: Many people feel that even in their 30s that they have smoked so long that it’s not worth quitting and we hear this all the time from individuals especially people in their 50s and 60s and 70s. They say, “Well, I’ve been smoking so long. It’s too late, what’s the point of me quitting?”
The research shows very clearly that even somebody in their 80s can get health benefits from quitting because there are very real benefits that occur in the first couple hours after you quit, in the first days that you quit, in the first weeks that you quit.
In many cases, the person’s breathing can become better in the first couple of weeks. We know that the carbon monoxide that’s produced as a result of the burning process in smoking, that goes away in a couple of days, so you’re immediately getting more oxygen into your body. You’re improving your circulation.
The fact to the matter is that even if there aren’t any dramatic changes in your health, getting any dramatic benefits from quitting, we know very clearly that it stops any further declines from smoking.
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