Male, 43 years old, Hemet, Ca, smoked about a pack a day, medical school student who started smoking when he was 16 years old for social reasons, smoked until he was 28 and quit cold turkey. When he was 39 years old he was laid off due to the economy, was stressed and started smoking again. He now realizes his mistake because smoking didn’t help and made his reality even worse.
Treatments he used to try to quit smoking: cold turkey, this time it didn’t work, nicotine gum, nothing happened, patches and still wanted to smoke, lozenges but they didn’t work, e-cigarettes, he said “It’s not the same. They didn’t work for me”.
What made him want to stop smoking? He has developed a chronic cough and congestion and doesn’t breathe well. He wants to be healthy again and be able to breathe better and jog again.
He has a loving wife, 3 grown children and some grandchildren whom he dearly loves. When he smokes he steps outside (by himself when he really wants to be with them) and smokes, knowing that when he steps back inside, he stinks (his words). He says, “I love them and want to spend my life with them. I don’t want to die young. I can almost see my retirement. I have worked hard and I want to enjoy it.”
“People hate the smell, I hate the smell and my wife won’t kiss me after I smoke. That effects our relationship.” he says.
His triggers: I have a drink and I crave a smoke, I stress out and I want a smoke, after a meal, when I wake up, while I’m driving, etc., etc., etc.”
He also didn’t like spending $168.00 per month on cigarettes. With that money, he wants to pay some bills and begin to put more away for the future (retirement, vacation?)
He is happy that he came here to stop smoking. He has agreed to give me his personal testimonial after he has been smoke free for 30 days. I look forward to receiving it. Please check back in.
Female, 56 years old, Lake Elsinore, CA, smoked 1 pack a day, smoking since she was 16 years old. Started smoking to be cool.
Treatments she used to try to quit: electric cigarettes.
Her daughter called me from the hospital to ask me if I could help her mother quit smoking. Her mother had never been sick, was always active, always helping others. Then one day she found herself in serious pain and called 911 thinking she was having a heart attack.
When her doctors came back with a diagnosis of diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a couple of spots on her lungs, she was in shock. It took a while for all this medical information to sink in. Immediately she changed her diet, began an exercise program and came to me to stop smoking.
What made her want to stop smoking? First, her doctor told her that diabetes and smoking do not mix, that if she didn’t stop smoking she would be on a respirator within the year and if she had another episode like this one he wouldn’t be able to save her.
However, the real reason she wanted to stop smoking was to see her 7 year old granddaughter grow up. ”She’s my whole world. I have to be here for her. It would kill her to lose me.”
She also didn’t like that she was wasting $180 to $210 per month smoking. Now that she has quit, she is going to buy Disneyland passes for herself and her granddaughter with the money she would otherwise have spent poisoning herself.
I had a client today that made me think about a lot of things. One was the cost of smoking. I have thought of a lot of the costs related to smoking but I had never thought about the cost of the items that people use to mask the fact that they are a smoker. This client had to drive long distances to get to clients and would smoke along the way. But before she went to a meeting, she had allotted some time to find a restroom somewhere, to stop, get out of the car, walk into the place where there was a restroom, brush her teeth, use mouthwash, wash her hands, fabreze her car and perfume herself. These things cost her extra money not to mention time which is money, too. And all the time she is doing this, she feels like a fraud and believes that she can never mask it enough, that people will smell it on her breath, hair or clothing anyway.
She has two lifetime gym memberships but avoids going because she knows that when she works out hard and exhales hard, people can smell cigarettes on her breath.
She mentioned that she had burned a cigarette hole in the seat of her car and was concerned that if she got in an accident the insurance adjuster would smell the cigarette residue in her car and see the burn hole and tell her “We don’t have you insured as a smoker, so we won’t cover this claim.” This weekend she is buying a new car and there will be no smoking in that car. No more lying to insurers and worrying about getting caught.
At 15 minutes per cigarette, x’s 10 cigarettes per day, she is spending 150 minutes smoking and being unproductive. That’s 2 – 2 ½ hours per day and she is self employed. Now if she spent that 2 hours per day productively, during the day, she would have more leisure time at home in the evening, not working.
In her family, she is the one who people come to for advice and help. She said that if she doesn’t stop smoking, she is going to have to rely on them to take care of her, for some illness that she could have prevented by quitting smoking.
She has low blood pressure and used to tell herself: “Good thing I smoke, smoking will make my blood pressure go up.” Now she wants to exercise, get fit and deal with her low blood pressure in a healthy way.
