Many choose new year to go smoke-free

Road to Freedom

When Terry Hill decided to quit smoking because of health concerns, he sought assistance through St. John’s Road to Freedom Tobacco Cessation program.

“I wanted to breathe better, feel better and not be winded when I got to the top of the stairs,” Hill said.

Hill, who works at Resource Optimization and Innovation, had tried to quit smoking on his own several times.

“I’d gotten to the point that I was afraid to try to quit because I’d fail. So I kept putting off trying to quit,” Hill said.

Hill chose St. John’s Road to Freedom program because it was covered by his insurance.

In most cases St. John’s smoking cessation program is covered by insurance according to Terri Driver, registered nurse and coordinator of Road to Freedom. Medicare and Medicaid also are accepted, and payment programs are available.

For a cash payment, the consultation and 10 visits cost about $500, Driver said.

“I’d also heard they had good success rates, and I wanted to succeed,” Hill said.

Driver said the program has a success rate of 47 percent to 49 percent of people not smoking one year after having completed the program.

The St. John’s Road to Freedom program begins with a 90-minute consultation of the person’s smoking and health history, a plan is created to help the client change behavior, and the client sets a day to quit smoking. The client begins a seven-day countdown during which he begins altering smoking behavior to prepare him for the quitting day.

“We like to see them twice a week for three weeks. Some people require more treatment and support than others. We try to make it individualized,” Driver said.

Auricular therapy, biofeedback, exercise consultation and support are part of the treatment. Auricular therapy treatments are similar to acupuncture, and biofeedback helps clients handle stress.

“We’re helping our clients not to smoke, but also, in the process, teaching them that water, exercise and diet are important,” Driver said. “Smoking is an addiction – they are physically and mentally addicted. Anyone can quit. But it is one of the hardest addictions to overcome,” Driver said.

Hill said he is doing well since he quit smoking three months ago.

“At first they gave me a program to start stepping down my smoking and to change some of my habits. For example, not to smoke in the house, not to smoke in the car on my way to work and home. That lasted one week. Then I went in for the treatments with auricular therapy. It was like I was ready. I had followed the program and then with the (auricular) therapy it was a breeze,” Hill said.

The St. John’s program also goes on-site with companies that want to encourage employees to stop smoking.

Lisa Hendrick, vice president at Diesel Exchange, said her company went through the program about a year ago when the company adopted a no-tobacco policy. Of the employees who went through the program, Hendrick estimates about 50 percent were successful.

“Our goal was to reduce health insurance costs and at the same time help employees who wanted to stop smoking,” Hendrick said.

“Each time someone tries to quit, they become closer to being tobacco-free for life,” Driver added. “They have to want to quit smoking. Nothing that we have is a magic bullet.”

TIPs

CoxHealth offers Tobacco-free Individu-alized Plans, also known as TIPs.

“We meet with the person to help design an individualized plan to meet that person’s needs,” said Sue Brown, TIPs coordinator. “Then we have follow-up individual counseling and group support.”

For Debbie Alexander, respiratory therapist with CoxHealth, TIPs was the help she needed to kick her 36-year smoking habit. She joined the program in July. The most helpful part of the program, Alexander said, was the one-on-one meetings she had with Brown, which helped her process both her temptations and her reasons for quitting.

Alexander, who said she smoked more than a pack a day, also benefited from the support group sessions.

“I’ve never been a real big person on support groups. … I always thought that was kind of hokey. But the support groups that they have … there’s a lot of positive thoughts shared,” Alexander said.

The individual plans are designed to help quitters as they move through the stages of change, which include contemplation, preparation and action. “Rather than going from barely thinking about quitting to quitting – it’s not very reasonable – we help them process through the stages,” Brown said.

But quitting is a good move, Brown said, because statistics show that there’s a difference of about 14 years in the life expectancy of a smoker versus a nonsmoker. Once someone quits, though, the difference begins to decrease.

Usually, Brown said, after six months, a quitter moves into the maintenance stage, meaning that they no longer need as much support to stay off cigarettes. She noted, however, that relapses are common, and when they occur, TIPs is available for support.

Alexander hasn’t had a relapse since she quit – this time. Her two previous attempts to quit on her own lasted 11 days and three days, respectively, she said.

TIPs can help determine whether help for handling withdrawal – whether that’s nicotine patches, lozenges, gum, prescription inhalers or nasal spray – is needed. Alexander said she was able to go cold-turkey without nicotine replacement aids.

Though Alexander is in the maintenance phase and no longer meets with Brown regularly, she isn’t taking her smoke-free status for granted. She’ll be part of a support group that starts meeting in February.

“In my mind, I know that I’ll never smoke again, but yet, on the other hand, I know that it’s an addiction and it can jump up and bite me at any time. It helps to keep your mind on that, so I’ll continue the support group,” Alexander said.

Brown declined to provide the success rate of TIPs, which costs $80 a year, but usually isn’t covered by insurance. There are scholarships available for the program.

Alexander said she’s seen the effects of smoking through her work, but it was “being scared to death for my health,” that prompted her to finally quit. That, and the feeling of freedom that comes from getting away from tobacco and the control of an addiction.

“It’s a health thing. And it’s not just about ‘because I enjoy smoking, I’m going to die 10 years sooner,’” she said. “It’s about what I have to go through before I get to die.”

She said that once a smoker understands what the habit is doing to the body, and how it takes quality of life away, they just have to learn to hate it.

“If you value quality of life at all, you don’t have to be in the respiratory field to know that it’s going to kill you, and before you die, you’re going to spend a whole lot of time not being able to breathe,” Alexander said.

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