Since the program began—shortly before FirstHealth’s July 4, 2004, declaration of independence from tobacco, more than 1,150 people have completed FirstQuit, a regimen that offers personalized quit plans and group support to people who want to give up their tobacco habits. Of that number, 13 percent have been FirstHealth employees, volunteers or spouses and 69 percent have come from throughout the communities that FirstHealth serves.
Another 18 percent have, like Lunsford and Christina Foley of Pinehurst, kicked their tobacco habits through classes at occupational sites where FirstQuit is offered as part of a wellness program that is available to subscribers of FirstHealth’s FirstCarolinaCare managed-care plan.
A socially unaccepted habit
Many people are physician-referred
to the FirstQuit program, but Foley
decided to give up smoking for reasonsother than health concerns.
“Smoking is socially unacceptable, and I was embarrassed
that I smoked,” she says. “My boyfriend hated
it. It finally got to the point where he got honest and
straight with me. If everyone would just look at their
loved ones and express their concerns, I think, a lot more
people would stop to think about it.”
Both Lunsford and Foley, the credit manager in the
Accounting Department for Pinehurst Resort, were
longtime smokers. Lunsford began as a college student;
Foley, even earlier.
“Then it was just fashionable,” Lunsford says. “It
wasn’t considered a health risk, or nobody said there
was anything wrong with it. Years later, those things
came out, but you get started, and the more you smoke,
the more difficult it is to quit.”
“I don’t really know why I started smoking,” says
Foley. “My mom didn’t smoke, and none of my grandparents
smoked. My dad smoked, and I thought he was
pretty cool, so that may have had something to do with
the transition from every now and then with friends to
full-time smoking when I was about 20 years old.”
How FirstQuit works
FirstQuit helps people give up their tobacco habit
when they are ready to do it. It also helps them stay quit.
The program includes a customized quit plan, health
education, coping strategies, support services and information
on nicotine replacement therapy.
Quitting is not easy, according to Lynn Antil, a
health educator with the FirstQuit program, but it can
be done. “People have to continue to remind themselves
of their reasons for quitting and the benefits of
doing so,” she says.
They also have to come to an understanding of the
day-to-day habits that trigger lighting up or reaching for
snuff or a tobacco chew. For Lunsford, it was the day’s
first cup of coffee.
“It was inevitable that I would have a cup of coffee
and smoke,” she says. “In the mornings, when I would
get up, that was the first thing that I would grab.”
Support is also key to quitting success. “Another girl in
my department was quitting with me,” Foley says. “We
both thought it would be hardest for her and easiest
for me. Since this wasn’t the case, she came to my rescue
and got me through the worst couple of days.”
Foley has been smoke-free since Feb. 1; but, as Antil
suggests, it wasn’t easy. “I went into this thinking it was
going to be a piece of cake,” Foley says. “Wrong! It was
very difficult for me. Peer support was a huge help.”
“I still crave it,” Lunsford says, “but not as much. Each
day, it gets less and less.”
As it happens, quitting tobacco provided an incentive
for Lunsford to improve her health in other ways,
too. “At first, I gained weight,” she says. “So I decided
that I would change what I was going to eat, to drink
a lot of water.”
Since she lives near her workplace, Lunsford sometimes
walks to work. She also walks in her neighborhood
and eats “lots of salads, lots of fruits.”
Although her reasons for quitting were more
social- than health-related, Foley has also benefited
health wise. “I feel great, and I’m so glad I did
this,” she says. “I had a hard time quitting, because
I didn’t feel like it was totally my decision. I would
say things like ‘but I like to smoke; I don’t want to
quit.’ But what I realized deep down was that I really
did want to quit.”
Foley also has some sound advice for people who are
thinking about quitting, thoughts that she admittedly
borrowed freely from Antil and the FirstQuit philosophy.
“Have a firm quit date,” she says. “Set your quit
date and then stop stressing. If you smoke too
many cigarettes before your quit date, who cares?
Once the date arrives, it is mind over matter. You
just have to make yourself stay strong and do it.
Don’t accept defeat and start smoking again. If
you slip, it was exactly that—a slip. Don’t start
back thinking you will just set a new quit date.
Keep on with the plan. Forgive yourself and move
ahead, but whatever you do, don’t go back on
your quit date.”
And now that she has quit, Lunsford finds herself
encouraging other smokers to do the same.
“But I don’t do it in a negative fashion,” she says. “If
I see someone smoking, I’ll say, “You know, I used to
smoke and maybe you ought to try to quit, too.’” 
FirstHealth Community Health Services offers the
FirstQuit quit-tobacco program in Moore, Richmond,
Montgomery and Hoke counties. For more information
on how to become involved, please call (877) 342-2255. |
