Taking a roundabout road to smoking cessation
Cardiologist Ted Fenske won’t tell you to stop smoking. He knows you’ve been told so many times you’ll just tune him out anyway.
You will have to quit someday, of course, because there is no safe level of smoking, Fenske says. In fact, smoking is the pre-eminent risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
But until that day, there are other things you can change in your life that will reduce your risk for stroke and heart disease.
Fenske outlines these strategies in his new book While You Quit, written, ironically, while he himself recovered from a stroke.
Fenske has never smoked. His stroke, five years ago at age 40, was brought on by a rare dissection or internal tearing of the carotid artery and a clot that restricted blood to his brain.
It paused his life, giving him time to write down the things he wanted smokers to know about improving their health, short of butting out.
Fenske says the approach, which he takes with his own patients, knocks people off guard because it’s non-threatening.
“Smokers have a tremendous fear about smoking cessation,” he says. “It’s remarkable how fear plays into their addiction. They become so reliant on this drug, they begin to believe they need it to function, and if you take it away from them, they think their life is going to fall apart.”
Patients often tell him they can’t tackle the smoking monster right now because they’re already stressed out by problems at home or at work. They think smoking calms them down, but nicotine is actually a stimulant.
Healthier ways to reduce stress include getting a full night’s sleep, being physically active, following a healthful diet, taking a break from work and watching a funny movie, Fenske says.
“Those are things that also help reduce their risk of heart disease and stroke and put them in a better position — a healthier position — to tackle something as giant, in their mind, as quitting smoking.”
It’s still a little-known secret that smokers who are active have a substantially lower risk of heart disease and stroke than sedentary non-smokers, Fenske says.
“Smoking is a crutch. Rather than taking that crutch from them, we smooth out the road ahead so they don’t have to rely on the crutch quite as much. They’re also more likely to be successful when they decide to throw the crutch away.”
The rewards of quitting are immediate. The risk for heart attack and stroke plummets exponentially, so by the two-year mark, it’s comparable to the risk of a person who has never smoked, Fenske says. Reducing the risk of lip, tongue, throat, esophagus, stomach, lung and bladder cancer takes longer — 10 to 12 years after quitting for good. “So why not get that clock ticking as soon as possible? Why hold off?”
Especially now, when fewer than one in five people smoke.
“These days, the smoker is kind of like a leper,” he says. “They’re social outcasts … No longer can they recline at the dinner table or at a restaurant and have a drag.”
The sneaky thing about his indirect approach, Fenske says, is once someone starts doing something healthy, such as watching what they eat or going for walks, they’re less likely to smoke.
“They’re almost mutually incompatible (behaviours) in the long term, so you begin to set yourself up for success.”
czdeb@thejournal.canwest .com
