Quitting Isn't Easy
Smoking cessation program helps Duke employee make the difficult change
Kicking smoking hasn't been easy for Tylena Martin.
The first time she quit, she stopped cold turkey for six months. Then, the day her mother died, she lit up, one cigarette after another.
"The cigarettes were my best friend," she said. "I could smoke and wouldn't have to talk to anybody about what was going on with me. It was just me and my cigarette."
But Martin, the administrative assistant at Duke's Outpatient Dialysis unit, wanted to quit and reclaim her health.
A few months ago, she investigated the QuitSmart classes offered through Duke's Live for Life program. She wanted a class that helped her find substitutes for stress relievers "because stress is what caused me to go back to smoking."
She found what she needed.
The class taught Martin to use meditation to control her urge to smoke when her hands are idle. "Now when I don't have anything physical to do, I close my eyes and focus on positive thoughts," she said. "I usually think of the ocean because I love water. At home I can sit out in my garden and just drift away."
She's also focusing on something else -- money saved by dropping the two-pack-a-day habit. On April 1, the government increased taxes from 39 cents to $1.01 per pack. Martin said the monetary value of quitting only became apparent after she had stopped her daily visits to the convenience store.
"If you are a serious smoker, you don't think about the cost," she said. "But now I see how much money I was wasting." These days, she's putting the extra money toward paying off her student loans. "It's like having an extra payment each month," she said.
The QuitSmart class warned Martin that people were likely to lapse, and sure enough, it happened to her the second time she tried to quit. "I got stressed one day, and I went out and lit up a cigarette," she said.
But Martin had a new tool.
"As soon as I lit it up I stopped and said ‘Tylena, this is not what you want, this is not what you need. Just refocus,'"she said. "And I put it out. I just focused on how much better I feel now. I can breathe better. I can exercise better. I can walk in the house, and it is a clean smell and I love it."