Are You Ready to Quit Using Tobacco?

If quitting tobacco were easy, everyone would do it.

Most tobacco users know enough about the health risks associated with smoking and chewing tobacco. Yet knowledge alone typically doesn’t motivate tobacco users to successfully quit. Recent changes in laws and workplace regulations regarding smoking, combined with increasing social hostility toward smokers, have made smoking so burdensome and inconvenient that many desire to quit because they are tired of the hassle and even more tired of being treated like second-class citizens.

Understanding your unique motivation to quit can provide valuable insight into the process. Adequate motivation involves addressing current, measurable conflicts with personal values and issues of daily living as well as concern over long-term health status. For example, an increasing number of smokers are seeking help because they believe that secondhand smoke can, and does, harm the health of their children and other family members. Smokers often rationalize harming themselves, but find it difficult to reconcile harming loved ones.

Stages of change

Your readiness to quit using tobacco can be measured along a continuum using the stages of change model. Discovering the stage in which you currently reside will allow you to discover how close, or how far, you are from actually quitting—perhaps for the last time.

The stages are:

1. Precontemplation — having no desire to quit using tobacco
2. Contemplation — knowing there is a need to quit but not taking any steps toward changing
3. Preparation — taking the initial steps to quit, such as learning more, seeking advice or just committing to the process
4. Action — engaging in tobacco cessation
5. Maintenance — living tobacco free is successfully incorporated into one’s daily life

Most tobacco users are stuck in the contemplation stage. They know the risks and are tired of the hassle, but it never seems like the right time to quit. They tell themselves and loved ones that they will quit—someday. Others in this stage have attempted to quit before but failed and are not sure why. Understanding your level of addiction, specific circumstances, strengths and resources will help you move another step closer to the action stage.

Moving from contemplation to action

Here are nine important questions to consider as you “contemplate” quitting:

1. What do you like most about smoking or chewing tobacco?
2. What is the severity of your addiction to nicotine? For example, using tobacco within 30 minutes of waking, or experiencing irritability and mood swings during short periods of abstinence suggests a more severe dependency.
3. What’s your current health status and risk for tobacco-related illness? Has your doctor ever told you to quit? Have you noticed physical symptoms that scare you?
4. What is the level of support from your family, co-workers and friends for quitting?
5. What are your “real” reasons for quitting?
6. What are the biggest obstacles you face in quitting?
7. Honestly evaluate your previous attempts to quit. What was missing? Adequate motivation? Support? Professional help?
8. What are your biggest triggers for using tobacco? After meals? When drinking alcohol? While driving?
9. How will you, or those you care about, benefit from quitting?

Don’t go it alone

Take time to review your responses to these questions with someone who knows you well and can be objective about your tobacco use. Your spouse or a trusted friend or co-worker may be willing to help. You can also call your employee assistance program or a health professional who can provide you with additional information and direct you to other resources.

Sources: The Transtheoretical Approach: Crossing the Traditional Boundaries of Therapy by J.O. Prochaska and C.C. DiClemente. Krieger Publishing Company, 1984; Gold, M.S., Edwards, D.W. (2000). Treating cigarette smokers in 2000. Your Patient & Fitness, 14(4):6-11.

By Drew Edwards, EdD, MS
© 2005 Achieve Solutions