The American Cancer Society holds the Great American Smokeout ® each November to encourage smokers to quit for just one day in the hope they will quit forever. This year's event is tomorrow, November 16 th .  

John Lowe, MD, professor and head of community and behavioral health at University of Iowa College of Public Health, offers these comments:

For smokers who are serious about quitting tomorrow, what will be their key to success?

It's waking up and saying they can do it. That they can go that day without a cigarette; and just taking it one hour at a time, not to worry about the afternoon, tell themselves that they can do it. Then, start to do things that will help them, and we'll talk a little bit later in the discussion about tips on what they can do. But, it's really making that decision - I'm going to quit tomorrow.  

Why do people most often decide to quit?

Initially it's because of family or a friend, and those are all good reasons, but what we've found is the person that moves from saying, "I'm going to quit because of a very good reason, I want to be around for my kids, I want to see their kids grow up."   "I want to quit for my wife."   Move through that to say, "I want to quit for myself, I'm doing this for myself," because that's the person that's most important in this equation. And quitting for yourself and saying, "I'm going to do it because I'm going to better my health."

What methods are available to help quit smoking?

There are a number of programs available. There are group programs where you can go weekly and attend. There are self-help books that are available in local bookstores. There's Quitline Iowa, which is a toll-free telephone counseling service.

Most programs will help you to develop a plan how you can change your life and deal with the issues that you're being faced with when you quit smoking. Many of them will provide, or have programs help provide nicotine replacement. The two together are the most effective is because when you quit smoking, your body starts to detoxify, and that detoxification is an unpleasant feeling in that it feels different. Basically it's a drug withdrawal.

Nicotine replacement and some other drugs out on the market will help you to work on the behavioral aspects, the psychological aspects, to quitting smoking so that you can get a handle, because we've all known people that have quit for a week, two weeks, even six months and they go back.

What we know is that somewhere between five and seven days, the physiological addiction is over, so that's not the strongest thing that makes us go back to smoking. So what we want to do is have some help initially with the physiological, wean off of that, but then deal with the behavioral because those are the things that really make us go back to smoking that three months, six months, or one year later.

What is Quitline Iowa and how can Iowans access it? (866-U-CAN-TRY or 866-822-6879)

It's very simple, they can call 1-866-U-CAN-TRY, or that's 1-866-822-6879, or you can call the 1-800-QUIT-NOW national program. Either way, even if you call the national, it comes back to Quitline Iowa. Quitline Iowa has trained counselors from 8 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week, available to help you to quit.

What they do is work with you to determine what it's going to take for you to be successful. And our quitters report having most success when they use Quitline Iowa; it's a proactive, so once you call, we'll call you, but it's available if you're having just urges tomorrow. And you know, you've quit for a while, just give Quitline Iowa a ring.

The good news is that over 70 percent of Iowans that call Quitline Iowa, quit. So, if you need help, it's a great resource, it's funded by the Iowa Department of Public Health, the tobacco division, and it's an excellent resource for smokers out there.

What are some tips to help if a listener decides to quit smoking for at least one day tomorrow?

In addition to calling or getting involved in a program, there's just a lot of little things one can do to help break that relationship between this really important friend of ours, called the cigarette, and what we do.

Little things like, if you drink your coffee with your right hand, drink it with your left hand, it'll break the feeling. If you normally drive to work and you always smoke when you're driving, drive a different way. Even if it's just taking a couple roads. Here in Iowa City, there's lots of ways to get to different places, go a different way. Wear some clothing that you've never smoked in, even if it's just a sweater or a shirt or something.

A woman once told me that she had her virgin dress that had never been smoked in. So try to look at that. You don't want to break that, so keep that special. Tell your friends. Don't hesitate to try to get some help and say, "You know, I'm going to quit smoking, be supportive of me, don't nag me."   And then, just be persistent.

What keeps a smoker who quits from starting to smoke again ?

Finding activities and restructuring your life. One of the real positive things that we hear from smokers is that when they quit, they find out they get that feeling, they get that taste, and they find out that they might like themselves and they're not hiding behind that cigarette and the cigarette's not coping.

One of the things that we work with smokers on is how do they deal with emotion, because for a smoker, if you're happy, sad, feeling sexy, whatever, what do you do--you light up. Well, if you're quitting and you don't have that, how do you deal with those emotions?   And while some of them are more pleasant than others, they all can be dealt with and it's helping people to then work through that and find a new way to deal with life without the cigarette.

The good news is that as we start to see more non-smoking, restaurants, bars, even communities, it makes it easier for that person quitting to go to places and be involved with activities that they're really comfortable with where there's no smoking.

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