Information and Materials

Why quit?

Every smoker's reason to quit is unique. Learning why helps motivate you to quit.

Numerous studies show the following reasons to quit:

  • Smokers are more likely to die earlier than non-smokers. A 35-year-old smoker is twice as likely to die before reaching the age of 65.
  • Smoking can affect the way you live your life and can get in the way of who you want to be.
  • Smoking causes many diseases that can make you disabled and dependent on other people, such as heart and vascular disease, cancer, aneurysms, and lung disease.
  • Smoking can affect a woman's ability to have a healthy baby or get pregnant. It's linked to miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death, low birth weight, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
  • Smoking can cause impotence in men because of decreased blood flow.
  • Smoking affects the people you care about via second-hand smoke. Children who breathe second-hand smoke have more asthma attacks and ear infections.
  • Quitting smoking will save money! Health care problems from smoking can cost you money in missed work, doctor's visits, and long-term care. In the short term, those packs of cigarettes add up! A pack-a-day smoker who pays $7.50 for a pack of cigarettes spends $52.50 a week and $2,730 a year.

Please refer to the following articles from our Healthwise® Health Encyclopedia website:

Smoking cessation materials

Support

Nicotine withdrawal and medications

For family and friends

Websites and helplines

  • New Hampshire and Vermont Quitlines
  • National Network of Tobacco Cessation Quitlines: 1-800-QUIT NOW (1-800-784-8669). This is a single access point to the National Network of Tobacco Cessation Quitlines. Callers are automatically routed to a state-run quitline, if one exists in their area. If there is no state-run quitline, callers are routed to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) quitline.
  • Freedom from Smoking Online: A free 24-hour smoking cessation program available on the Internet through the American Lung Association. It allows smokers to progress at their own pace through lessons and assignments that educate smokers about their personal habits and provides tools and techniques that may be helpful in the quitting process.
  • www.trytostop.org: Has interactive and comprehensive, individualized, stage-based support. An information and referral service for people who want to stop smoking and those who want to support them, funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
  • Centers for Disease Control
  • Smokefree.gov (National Cancer Institute)
  • Nicotine Anonymous: A non-profit support group that offers a 12-step program to help its participants quit smoking.

For health care providers with patients who want to quit