Start planning now to kick the habit

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Don’t wait until New Year’s Day to try to stop smoking
By LOIS LEGGE Features Writer
Mon. Dec 15 – 6:00 AM

IT’S BEEN a habit and it’s been a crutch. Even, at times, a best friend.

Now, though, you’ve decided to quit cigarettes for good. That is, when New Year’s Day rolls around.

But while quitting smoking is almost as much of a New Year’s tradition as hangovers and levees, it may take a bit more of a plan.

That’s why Dr. Gerry Brosky of Halifax advises smokers to start preparing for the struggle even before the first day of 2009.

And he says they shouldn’t hesitate to seek help, whether that’s taking medications that ease withdrawal, going to support groups or checking out the Pfizer-sponsored website Countdown to Quit.

The website, www.itscanadastime.ca/en/countdown, offers quitting tips and followup emails of encouragement.

“It is probably the most powerful addicting chemical we know of,” says Dr. Brosky, an associate professor of family medicine at Dalhousie University who specializes in anti-smoking research and advocacy.

“Cocaine addicts tell us that it’s probably more difficult to quit smoking than it is to quit cocaine.”

Going cold turkey can be a physically challenging and psychologically traumatizing experience, especially since smokers also have so many core emotional ties to the toxic, cancer-causing substance, Brosky says.

“Cigarette smoke gives them a sense of well-being, calms them when they’re anxious, energizes them when they’re tired, gives them confidence when they’re insecure and is just a very, very reassuring drug.

“It also focuses their attention when they’re a bit fuzzy, and so they use it in a lot of aspects of their life.”

Add to that the everyday habitual triggers like coffee or food and smokers have a powerful opponent to overcome.

That’s why, when it comes to kicking the habit, preparation and practice are crucial.

“Before people stop smoking, I recommend that they review all the cigarettes they have during a day, what they’re associated with, so . . . they know when they have their first one, their second one, their third one, and they experiment with those times,” says Brosky.

“So if you have a cigarette with your coffee in the morning, if you had your coffee somewhere else, would you be less likely to smoke? What would it take for you to break up the stimulus-response reaction of the situation you’re in and where you have the cigarette?

“I think that’s a great way of doing it. They’ve spent their entire adult life using cigarettes to help them get through a day, cope with stresses at work and at home and it’s integrated into almost all the aspects of their life and so to unravel that, figure out where it fits in and think of how they’re going to cope without this cigarette . . . takes some time and some thought and some support.

“(It’s) best to start early, make a plan and see their family doctor, too, who can give them some support and some direction, especially with respect to medications.”

Brosky says medications like Zyban and Champix or nicotine replacement, such as the patch, gum or inhalers, increase smokers’ chances of staying off cigarettes.

“About a third of smokers who try to quit each year, try to quit around New Year’s,” he says. “If they try it on their own without any support, without any counselling, without any medication, their success rate at the end of the year is under five per cent.”

“If they use a medication like the latest ones, like Champix, their success rate . . . at the end of a treatment period is about 50 per cent and that goes down to about 25 per cent at end of a year, which is pretty good. That’s five times better than not.”

Brosky, now using Pfizer-produced Champix in a research study, says if smokers receive additional counselling services, the success rate is even higher.

Those resources can include the Countdown to Quit website or the Canadian Cancer Society’s helpline at 1-877-513-5333. But Brosky thinks medications and support services are underused.

And often products like nicotine gum aren’t used long enough.

“It’s not a health problem,” he says. “The nicotine itself is fairly benign. It can cause blood vessels to get a little smaller, but the concentrations you use in nicotine replacement are very, very small, compared to the concentrations you get in cigarettes. So really they don’t seem to cause any trouble.”

But the alternative certainly does.

Even though smoking rates have dropped, 20 per cent of Canadians are still addicted. And smoking, Brosky says, remains the leading cause of lung disease. It’s also behind 30 per cent of cancerous tumours and 30 per cent of heart disease.

( [email protected])

‘Cigarette smoke gives them a sense of well-being, calms them when they’re anxious, energizes them when they’re tired, gives them confidence when they’re insecure and is just a very, very reassuring drug.’
DR. GERRY BROSKY

Source: http://thechronicleherald.ca/ArtsLife/1096027.html

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