I am a smoker. What can I do to stop smoking?

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My advice is that you make an immediate decision to stop smoking. Once you have so decided, it is important to set a date to stop. Some people will be able to quit cold turkey, but others will do better by slowly reducing the number of cigarettes smoked over a number of days before stopping completely.

If you are unable to quit in this fashion, the next step would be to see your doctor and ask for help.

This help is usually in the form of nicotine administered in slowly decreasing doses with gum or a patch on the skin. This nicotine will partially reduce the craving for a cigarette.

Some patients will benefit from a support group of people in a similar situation. One such group that I can personally recommend from my own efforts to kick the cigarette habit is Smoke-Enders.

Don't give up if you fail the first time. It is very hard to quit. You will eventually succeed.

Once you have quit, you will reduce the risk of developing lung and other cancers, BUT: Damage has already been done, and your chance of getting lung cancer is about 2% in the next ten years.

My best advice is that you have a chest x-ray at least once a year, and preferably every six months. If your insurance will not pay for it, then pay for it yourself. It's the best way to invest the many hundreds of dollars you have saved by stopping smoking.

Your risk of lung cancer will diminish over the years after you stop smoking, but it will always be considerably higher than in the never-smoker. For this reason, I recommend that the x-rays be done regularly, for the rest of your life.

For other good sites with information and help with kicking the habit, try

• NicNet: Smoking Facts and Quitting Tips
• The Tobacco BBS, Gene Borio
• Quitnet
• The Great American Smokeout

Physicians can get information on smoking cessation for their patients at

CCSH Guide Your Patients to a Smoke Free Future

If there are no group programs in your area, or you are unable to attend a group program, there is what appears to be a good online 4 week smoking cessation program at OnHealth Stop Smoking Center I don't know what their success rate is, but I have tried out the introductory pages and it appears to be a very well constructed and thoughtful project. The program appears to be free of charge.