Mixed Methods Can Help Smokers Put Down Cigarettes
WESTON ― Each day, three thousand children in the United States start smoking. Globally there are 1.1 billion smokers. Most say the addiction to nicotine makes it tough to quit, but former smokers say it is possible to kick the habit.
Joyce Galietti, 47, of North Lauderdale has been smoking since she was 14. “It was just a typical teenage thing. Everybody was doing it. So we all did it,” she admitted.
Over the years, she’s tried to quit. Recently, she decided to kick the habit for good.
“My children they gave me a hard enough time about it. ‘It’s nasty,’ they would say. They’d hide my cigarettes and throw my ashtray away,” Galietti said.
“The most important aspect of a smoking cessation program is the patient’s readiness to actually quit smoking” explained Dr. Franck Rahaghi with the Cleveland Clinic Weston. He said 50 to 60 percent of smokers try to quit every year. But it’s not easy.
“It’s very, very difficult, both emotionally and physically, to quit smoking,” Rahaghi added.
The smoking cessation program at Cleveland Clinic Weston uses a combination of treatments including behavioral therapy, talking with a counselor and medication to wean smokers away from cigarettes. Rahaghi said smokers seem to have more success this way rather than with the cold turkey approach.
“A combination approach is the best one where there’s a behavioral modification by a professional advice given by a professional. The other one is medications that directly affect your brain affect the pleasure centers that block the addictive pleasure center aspects of smoking,” he explained.
Galietti said this approach worked for her when others failed. She has been smoke-free for eight months. “Incorporating all the programs and the counselors and altogether like a bundle package, it really did work this time.”
Rahaghi said, if at first you don’t succeed try, try again. “A lot of patients may require a couple of attempts to quit; but during those times they don’t smoke, they are promoting their health. And it’s okay to do this again and again and it’s worth doing it again and again.”
To find out about a smoking cessation program at Cleveland Clinic Weston, call 954-659-5000.
By Cynthia Demos, Nov 19, 2009
