Strategies for Quitting Smoking

It’s possible to quit smoking. Dr Joe Kosterich talks about ways you can stop smoking, including going cold turkey; getting help and support from friends, health professionals and the Quitline; and using medications. He also addresses concerns you may have about the side effects of stopping smoking, such as weight gain.

Transcript

Smoking rates are declining but there’s still people out there who are struggling with how to quit smoking.

Hi, I’m Dr. Joe.

Today we’re going to talk about things you can do to help quit smoking. Now, the first, really important thing to know is that it is not – and I repeat, NOT – as hard as you have been led to belief. Earlier this year, a major review was done of about 700 studies of people quitting smoking and what they found was a little bit surprising. They found that over 70% of people who quit successfully just quit and went cold turkey. 70%.

The other really interesting thing from this major review was that the commonest response from a lot of these people when asked about their experience is that it was not as hard as they thought it was going to be.

Now, with that in mind, what are some of the things we need to do to quit smoking?

First and foremost is you have to want to do it. It sounds so obvious but you actually have to be wanting to do it, not thinking I should do it or they told me to do it or it’s a good idea to do it. It’s something you have to want to do.

Assuming that is the case, it’s a little bit of a project. You’re going to make a change in your life. To make any change in your life you need to get a little bit organised:

• Set a date to do it.
• Tell the people around you that you’re going to do it. Enlist a little bit of support.
• Think about some of the times when you’re likely to smoke and what you might do in that situation. For example, a lot of people say, “I have a cigarette when I have a cup of coffee or a glass of beer.” Those 2 things are not joined at the hip; they don’t have to go together. So, a couple of things to think about when you have a cup of coffee make sure your cigarettes are out of reach so you can’t light up reflexly. If you tend to have a drink when you go to the pub, maybe for the first couple of weeks don’t go to the pub or just be aware that if you have a beer you don’t have to light up a cigarette. Simple things like separating your cigarettes from your matches means that, again, you can’t light up reflexly. So simple things make quite a big difference.
• People get concerned about putting on weight when they give up smoking. Have a ready supply of things like carrots or celery sticks so if you do get the munchies rather than chewing on a chocolate bar, chew on a stick of carrot. Have plenty of water around. If you feel you need something in your hand or something in your mouth then have a glass of water.

There are a number of stop-smoking aids and different people have different preferences about these. There are nicotine replacement patches that you can get from the chemist and there are chewing gums as well. There are also medications on prescription and that’s something you can chat about with your doctor.

All of these things are stop-smoking aids; they will not do it for you but they can assist you. Not everybody is going to need them.

The other really important thing when giving up smoking is, like a lot of things that we do in life, it doesn’t always happen the first time. So, if you have had a go at quitting smoking and you didn’t succeed, that’s fine. Think about what you did: think about what worked and think about what didn’t work, and then plan for the next time. It is said that Thomas Edison had 10,000 goes at inventing the electric light bulb before he finally succeeded. Now, it’s pretty unlikely that you’re going to need that number of goes to quit smoking but don’t be discouraged if it hasn’t worked the first time.

So, to recap: first and foremost, it can be done and you can do it. You have to want to do it. Quitting smoking is actually not going to be as hard as you think it is. And there is a famous saying by Henry Ford, “whether you belief you can or you can’t, you’re likely to be right.” So if you think you can’t do it there’s a fair chance that you won’t; and if you think that you can do it, there’s a much higher chance that you will. Set yourself a little bit of a plan, get yourself organised, enlist support as you need to. Have a chat with your doctor and consider whether any of these stop smoking aids are likely to be of help to you.

Smoking rates are declining, probably in 50 years time smoking may well be one of these things consigned to the dustbin of history. But for today, for those of you who are still smoking and want to quit, you can do it. Set yourself a target. Go for it.

More information

	Read more about How to Quit Smoking, including psychological smoking interventions, pharmacotherapy and combination therapies for quitting.
	For more information on smoking, its health effects and how to quit smoking, as well as some useful tools, videos and animations, see Smoking.