Tuesday, December 02, 2014

Hooray! The Smokeout is Winning Out

With violence at home and abroad dominating the news lately, the 38th Great American Smokeout on Nov. 20 passed with little notice. That was too bad, because news on the anti-smoking front is good.

The Smokeout for a time was a date when users were urged to quit for a single day, hoping that would lead them to stay tobacco-free thereafter. Lately, more emphasis is given to helping smokers develop a plan for quitting, drawing on many resources.

It's working. According to the most recent reports from the  U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking is continuing to decrease. For middle grade and high school students, the rate has declined from 28 percent in 2001 to 12.7 percent last year. The rate for adults 18 and older dropped from 23 percent to about 18 percent. Back in 1965, smoking was very popular and acceptable; about 42 percent of adults smoked. I was one of them.

I smoked for 50 years. My daily consumption of cigarettes ran between one and two packs. I also
puffed on cigars sometimes, and tried pipes of various types. I am an addict. If there were places for ex-smokers to meet regularly for support, I would be one of those to rise and state: "My name is Dick Klade. I am a tobaccoholic. I've been clean for 13 years."

How do I know I'm an addict? In 1963, I made a strong attempt to end my cigarette habit. I went completely to pipe smoking, and didn't inhale the fumes. That lasted three years. One evening, after a stressful day at work, I stopped at a drug store on the way home, bought a pack of cigarettes and resumed puffing as though I'd never stopped. I wasn't able to kick the cigarette habit again for 38 years.

Quitting all tobacco use for good was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. Beautiful wife Sandy and I, after consulting our family doctor, formed a detailed plan that included an exercise program. We set a firm stop date. Sandy curtailed her usual activities and provided strong support for the two weeks it took to get beyond my most urgent needs to puff. Progress was complicated by the complete failure of medication intended to help me with stress. It produced a violent reaction, raising a red rash over most of my body.

One of the surprising things about tobacco addiction is how differently it affects different people. One of our closest friends was able to smoke a pack a day for weeks and suddenly stop for days, weeks, or months without apparent effort. One of my golfing buddies said he didn't believe how hard it was for me to quit. He had smoked for 20 years. "When I quit, I just tossed my last pack in the trash and stopped," he said. "What's the big deal?"

Another pal had been clean for 10 years after 25 years of puffing. He said in his dreams he still saw himself smoking a cigarette in every scene he could remember upon waking. Strangely, some of the public service ads on TV encouraging quitting give me a strong urge to resume smoking. While other quitters came to dislike the smell of second-hand smoke, I enjoyed it, and I do to this day.

And I know if a pleasant whiff of smoke led me to light up just one cigarette, I would be right back into a two-pack a day habit. I hope the Smokeout sponsors and others promoting quitting succeed in helping us reach the day when no tobacco products (or e-cigarettes) are around to tempt me or anyone else to do one of the worst things possible to themselves.