Breaking New Year's resolution may be step on right path
I can't recall if Dad had a cigarette in his hand on the worst day of my childhood. I remember Uncle Don on the straw floor of our barn writhing in pain from the burst aneurysm in his head. I remember sprinting to the house to tell adults to call the doctor. I remember the shock of my Aunt Doris being told that her 43-year-old husband and father of their two kids was dead. And I remember the doctor worrying most about Dad, who was pale and out of breath after performing CPR in vain.
That's what it took to make my dad quit smoking.
Most quitting stories aren't that dramatic. Or that successful.
A study released this week shows that smokers who used nicotine-replacement medication such as patches, inhalers, gum, lozenges, sprays or pills are just as likely to return to their old smoking habits as people who quit the old-fashioned way. Less than one in 10 former smokers are like my dad, who quit cold turkey. Dad never said exactly why he quit, or even that he did quit. His Old Gold dispenser, a few packs of smokes at the ready, remained mounted next to our back door for months. Dad would just acknowledge that he hadn't smoked a cigarette in, well, 35 years by the time he died at age 87.
The odds are against smokers. And this time of year we could stage a Failure Parade for all the folks who made bold resolutions on New Year's Day to stop smoking, quit drinking, lose weight, eat better, get in shape or otherwise improve their lives, only to realize that they didn't even make it two weeks before sneaking a cigarette, a beer, a Twinkie or a second Twinkie, staying in bed instead of waking to work out, or wasting time on Facebook instead of reading a good book.
“You make that commitment and you try real hard, and then you get discouraged,” says Juli Aistars, an advanced-practice registered nurse with a career in cancer treatment who helps run the Courage to Quit anti-smoking program at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights. “I see that all the time. But is it impossible? No. You never give up on anyone.”
Aistars, who lives in Lake Zurich and has additional training as a tobacco-treatment specialist, says she doesn't like to use the word “failure.” In the race to quit smoking, a relapse is just a step backward, she says, not the end of the race.
“Everything they consider a failure is really a learning experience. They can use that to quit successfully,” says Aistars, whose clients in the anti-smoking program include everyone from a 24-year-old co-worker to a patient in the final stages of incurable lung cancer after a half-century as a smoker. “I'm really passionate about helping these people because there are so many who want to quit.”
A government study shows than almost half of our nation's 46.6 million smokers in 2009 quit for at least one day in an attempt to stop forever. Most successful quitters need about a half-dozen tries before they accomplish the goal, Aistars says.
The quest to quit a habit that could kill you generally isn't a solitary sprint. It's a long-distance race that often requires a support team. Aistars knows a lot about that, too.
“I understand the addictive personality because I have it,” Aistars admits. She smoked a half-pack of cigarettes a day until she quit after she got pregnant in her 20s. Smokers aren't unique.
“It's not like you have a problem and the rest of us don't. We all have problems,” Aistars says.
The 53-year-old, 110-pound Aistars is an ultramarathon runner who ran 200.5 miles in 72 hours to ring in the New Year. She's run dozens of super long-distance races, and her best 100-mile time is 21 hours and 14 minutes. Her habit may be healthier than smoking three packs of cigarettes, downing a fifth of whiskey or wolfing down a whole pecan pie in a sitting, but it gives her an understanding about people on the road to quitting cigarettes.
During her ultramarathons, Aistars has moments where she walks or stops to go to the bathroom, eat a snack or even take a nap. But she has loved ones supporting her and a desire to make it to the finish line, so she doesn't quit. She just hits the road again, trying to reach her goal one step at a time.