Jim Harris’ decision to quit smoking came down to one thing. He wanted to rid his life of negatives.

After working in the retail industry for 18 years, Harris was let go by his company in 1990. As he contemplated his next step, he decided to pursue a job he’d always been passionate about as a personal finance advisor. He could set his own hours and be his own boss.

“That was a time of transition in my life,” Harris said. “I wanted to be a more positive person and I decided, ‘I’m not going to smoke anymore.’”

With a new job came a new commitment to health. But it wasn’t easy.

Harris said the toughest part about quitting was making the decision to quit. Once he decided that he really was going to quit, he said, he didn’t find it hard to stick to his plan.

“It’s just making a decision for change,” Harris said. “It’s wanting to make a change in your life and being committed to doing it.”

Harris said he more or less quit cold turkey, and thought that was the only way to do it.

“I tried gum, but couldn’t keep it lit,” Harris said jokingly.

He said he did carry around a leather pouch with half a dozen toothpicks in it, and when he felt like he needed to put something in his mouth, he used one of those.

He said it wasn’t long until he broke himself of the habit, and today he almost has an allergic reaction when he’s around it.

“After 90 days, being around cigarette smoke became quite repulsive to me,” Harris said. “Now I have to stay away from it. When I’m in a smoky atmosphere, I feel like I have asthma.”

However, Harris said, he couldn’t have quit without the support of his wife, whom he has been married to for 33 years.

“I needed that encouragement and support, as does anyone who tries to quite smoking,” Harris said. “Everyone needs someone to help them with that decision and keep them accountable.”

Harris said that when he first quit smoking, he gained 20 pounds, which is not unusual among people who have smoked for a long time and then stopped. But, he added, it was worth it.

“I figured that (the weight gain) was better than a tobacco-related disease.”

Morgan County program offers tools to help people stop smoking

Jennifer Walker knows a lot of people who have given up smoking. And as the project coordinator for Morgan County’s Ready Set Quit Tobacco! program, she should. It’s her job to advocate for smoking cessation.

But searching her memory, she can’t remember anyone who actually has marked the Great American Smokeout date as their quit-smoking anniversary.

That doesn’t diminish the importance of the annual observance, which is the third Thursday of November—Nov. 19 this year.

“The day is to help bring awareness,” Walker said. “If someone can quit for one day, hopefully that can start them on the path for good.”

Quitting rarely comes about just because a person wants to anyway, Walker said. Normally a smoker drops the habit after a life event.

“They watch their dad die of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) or they find out they have kidney disease and if they stop (smoking) it will slow down their decline,” Walker said.

Quitting still tough

Even with such a strong health incentive, the task of quitting is not easy.

“It’s an addiction,” Walker said. “Being more powerful than that substance—than that cigarette —takes an enormous amount of courage and strength. It’s a physiological and mental addiction. There are receptors in the brain that crave the nicotine.

“I’ve seen studies showing that it’s easier to quit heroin than tobacco.”

Walker said she is encouraged by the way society has changed its attitudes toward smoking, some smokers keeping it a secret.

“I was amazed at the number of people who said they didn’t want to talk (to the press) because they didn’t want their pastor or their husband to know they are smoking,” Walker said.

She meets people who pretend to quit, just to get people off their backs, but do it surreptitiously.

“I know someone who thinks his family doesn’t know he smokes,” Walker said. “He’ll make excuses to go outside, or he’ll go to Lowe’s or Menards and he’ll come back smelling like smoke.

“It’s comical, yet it’s sad. He’s embarrassed and he doesn’t want to admit it. He had given it up, but took it up again during a stressful time.”

Observance shows how to quit

While Walker may not know anyone who quit during the Great American Smokeout, there are plenty who have.

The first smokeout was in 1974. Two years later, on Nov. 18, 1976, the California Division of the American Cancer Society successfully got nearly 1 million smokers to quit for the day. That California event marked the first smokeout, and the society took it nationwide in 1977, according to the American Cancer Society.

Walker was working last month to organize a local event.

Organizers of the Great American Smokeout credit the day and the awareness it has brought to spearheading smoking bans throughout the United States.

Walker said one of her proudest moments was when Morgan County approved its smoking ban for restaurants in the county in 2004. The law took affect in 2005.

It bans smoking in restaurants and public buildings, but doesn’t apply to bars, private clubs, workplaces, stores or other public places. It also allows public restaurants to have designated smoking rooms and to allow smoking outside the restaurants.

She said the ban has been watered down significantly since then, but is still a success.

Walker isn’t done trying to get smoking bans enacted. She is currently engaged in encouraging Martinsville to pass an ordinance that would ban smoking in the workplace.

Monroe County enacted a no-smoking ordinance for public places, including restaurants and bars.

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Want to Quit?

Smoking cessation classes in Monroe County

Beat Tobacco

Tuesday 6 p.m.

714 South Rogers St. 2nd Floor

Wednesday 5:30 p.m.

Arby’s Meeting Room, 3601 West Ind. 46

Friday noon

Volunteers in Medicine Clinic, 811 W. Second St.

Saturday 10:30 a.m.

Bloomington Hospital, Medical Arts Building, 619 W. First St.

Cessation classes are designed to educate and support you in your decision to be free of tobacco, whether it’s cigarettes, pipes, cigars, or smokeless tobacco. The classes are taught by qualified tobacco educators who have received training on how to help people quit. No registration is required and the classes are free. For more information call 812-353-5811 or visit www.smokefreebloomington.org. Or call the Free Indiana Tobacco Quitline 1-800-QUIT-NOW (8 a.m.-midnight, 7 days a week) sponsored by Monroe Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Coalition

About The Great American Smokeout

Every year on the third Thursday of November, smokers across the nation take part in the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout by smoking less or quitting for the day. The event challenges people to stop using tobacco and helps make people aware of the many tools they can use to quit for good.

Research shows that smokers are most successful in kicking the habit when they have some means of support, such as:

Nicotine replacement products

Counseling

Stop-smoking groups

Telephone smoking cessation hotline

Prescription medicine to lessen cravings

Guide books

Encouragement and support from friends and family members

Using two or more of these measures to help you quit works better than using any one of them alone. For example, some people use a prescription medicine along with nicotine replacement.

SOURCE: THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY