Give up smoking using the Fresh Start program.
Fresh Start is a campaign to assist smokers in giving up the habit and living a healthier life. Smoking has been linked to heart disease, cancer, emphysema and other illnesses and quitting means you reduce your susceptibility to such conditions. As the American Cancer Society outlines, "After five years of quitting, the risk of lung cancer almost decreases by half." Fresh Start consists of a series of group sessions and workshops to provide information and methods to help smokers succeed their efforts to stop smoking.
Instructions
1. Read the American Cancer Society's Fresh Start brochure. It is a two-page document highlighting the benefits of not smoking and it describes how the program works. Being informed by reviewing this information is the first step in quitting smoking.
2. Get your employer to sign up as a Fresh Start facilitator. Your employer, or a company representative, will need to attend training sessions to run a Fresh Start group at your workplace. Log on to the American Cancer Society's website to register.
3. Attend the four sessions run by your local Fresh Start facilitator over the course of a two-week period. The first part of the course teaches you stop smoking, while the second part educates you on continue to resist the temptation to smoke again.
4. Go to the meeting prepared with questions about quit smoking, the challenges you will face and overcome these. Your facilitator invites attendees to pose questions these at the beginning of each of the one-hour sessions. This is a positive support mechanism to help you deal with nicotine cravings.
5. Use the materials handed out during the first session to control your stress and weight gain management. Fresh Start identifies these two issues as two major obstacles to success, and the kit provides information on deal with these.
6. Go to each one of the sessions, and practice the methods Fresh Start describes to effectively kick your smoking habit. Use the group sessions for motivational support and a chance to share other smoker's success stories. Speak to other attendees of the meetings. Give and receive encouragement to maintain your momentum to quit.
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