Time to Quit - NZ Sign Language

How we can help you

Research has shown that if you use Quitline’s free services, you are five times more likely to quit successfully than if you go it alone.

We are available to help you beat your smoking addiction via telephone, text and online – whatever works best for you. Using a combination of our services will also increase your chances of successfully quitting.

This is what you should know about smoking:

• If you smoke a pack a day, it costs you around $6,000 per year.
• Tobacco companies sell the only consumer product that kills people when used as the manufacturer intends.
• Smoking kills 4500–5000 New Zealanders every year. Half of all regular smokers will die from a smoking-related disease, such as cancer, stroke or heart attack.
• Children of smokers are seven times more likely to become smokers themselves.
• Secondhand smoke kills around 350 New Zealanders every year.
• Smoking ages your skin faster and gives you wrinkles.
• Seventy percent of smokers wish they’d never started. Are you one of them?

Smoking is a very powerful addiction

• chemical – Nicotine is one of thousands of chemicals in tobacco. It’s addictive but not actually harmful – it’s the other 4000 chemicals that damage your health.
• habits – These are the routines, times and activities you have come to associate with smoking, for example: with coffee, after a meal, when talking on the phone or when driving.
• emotions – People smoke in response to feeling a certain way. You may smoke for pleasure (when happy), for comfort (when sad), for a break (when tired) or because you are excited, worried, bored …

What’s stopping you from quitting?

Smoking’s like a friend – I can’t cope without it. Are you sure?

• Smoking is a ‘friend’ that kills you.
• You could look for different ways to cope with stress.
• You could knock back your cravings with nicotine patches, gum or lozenges.
• Many people who quit say they feel a huge sense of freedom afterwards.

I enjoy smoking. Do you really?

• Most smokers can’t actually say why they enjoy smoking. Many also feel they would be happier if they quit.
• Nicotine is such an addictive substance, it tricks your brain into thinking you want to smoke.
• The good news is that you can re-train your brain so you don’t feel like smoking any more.

It’s my life and my choice. But ...

• With any choice, it’s good to weigh up pros and cons. Try listing yours.
• For example, you can choose to smoke or to have better health, more money and be a great example for friends and family.

I’m harming only myself. Not True!

• Secondhand smoke contains every poisonous chemical that smokers inhale.
• Secondhand smoke kills around 350 New Zealanders every year.
• Children exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely to develop asthma, coughs and ear infections.

I’ll put on weight if I quit. Not neccessarily.

• Cigarettes are deliberately sweetened – that’s why some quitters get sugar cravings.
• Reach for sugar-free gum, carrot and celery sticks or fruit.
• If you do put on some weight, research shows you are likely to lose it again when your body adjusts to you not smoking.
• Quitting means you’ll feel fitter and more ready for physical activity.

I’ve tried quitting – it’s too hard. Remember ...

• Most people try more than once before they succeed. Starting to smoke again doesn’t mean you’ve failed or that you should give up trying.
• When you begin any new challenge, you learn from mistakes and keep going.
• Believe in yourself. You’ve done other hard things and succeeded.

All my friends/family smoke. But ...

• While you may feel you’ll be the odd one out, smoking isn’t what makes you feel close to the people you like – or why people like you.
• Once you quit, and the cravings pass, you will be able to enjoy friends and family as you did before – even if some of them are smoking.

Quitline can help you. We are the quit smoking experts.

Smoking costs a lot

If you smoke a pack a day, you spend around $6,000 per year.

If you didn’t smoke, you could use that money to buy a car, spend $115 more on groceries every week, pay your power bill for the year, take a holiday overseas ...

The cost of living is rising all the time. Smoking is an expensive habit as well as a deadly one.

It burns a hole in your pocket and means you have less to spend on groceries, bills, yourself and your family.

As one smoker said:

If you quit, it’s like giving yourself a pay rise.

Would you turn down an extra $6,000 per year?

Tobacco kills

When you smoke tobacco, you inhale more than 4000 chemicals. These include:

• Acetone (paint stripper)
• Ammonia (toilet cleaner)
• Cyanide (rat killer)
• DDT (insect killer)
• Carbon monoxide (car exhaust fumes)

Do you want these poisons in your body?

• One in two regular smokers will die from a smoking- related disease, on average, 14 years earlier than non-smokers.
• Smoking damages your lungs, coating them with tar like soot in a chimney. Over time, less air can get into your lungs. This affects your circulation. That’s why lots of smokers get cold fingers and toes.
• Chemicals from smoking get into your bloodstream, muscles and brain. They increase your heart rate and blood pressure and narrow small blood vessels.
• Blocked blood vessels in your heart and brain can cause heart attacks and strokes.
• Smokers have poorer health generally and get more colds and flus.
• About 4500–5000 New Zealanders die from smoking every year. It’s the leading cause of preventable death. It causes some cancers.

It’s never too late to quit

As soon as you stop smoking, your body begins to repair itself.

Member of the Quitline Blog Community. (Visit www.quit.org.nz for more real-life stories.)

It’s not only you being harmed by smoking

Secondhand smoke kills around 350 New Zealanders every year.

Children exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely to develop asthma. They are also more likely to develop coughs, colds and ear infections.

Secondhand smoke contains the same poisonous chemicals that smokers breathe into their bodies.

About 500 people go to hospital each year with strokes caused by secondhand smoke.

About 15,000 asthma attacks in children under 16 are caused by secondhand smoke.

Every year 1500 young children have ear operations because of damage caused by secondhand smoke. Untreated ear problems can lead to deafness and learning difficulties.

Even if you don’t smoke around your baby or children, the poisonous chemicals from tobacco will stay in your clothes and still do them harm.

Children and teenagers whose parents and/or caregivers smoke are seven times more likely to become smokers themselves.

You’ll be doing your children, family and friends a big favour when you quit.

Do you want to smell bad? Do you want more wrinkles and stained teeth?

You’ll look better if you quit.

Smoking starves your skin of oxygen – it makes it dry and grey and gives you wrinkles. When you quit, your skin will start to get brighter and clearer.

In time, your hair, breath and clothes will smell nicer too. If you’re single, remember lots of people don’t want to date smokers.

70 percent of smokers wish they’d never started

Are you one of them?

We understand that quitting smoking can be difficult. We’re not here to judge you – we’re here to help.

Call Quitline and talk to one of our advisors – many of them used to be smokers themselves.

Go online to www.quit.org.nz and on the Quit Blogs you can get support from other people who are quitting. Get help from the online coach, who will help you make a plan to beat smoking. Or sign up for text message support with the Txt2Quit service.

On the phone and on our website, you can get an eight-week supply of nicotine patches, gum or lozenges for just $5 each. They will take the edge off your cravings and double your chances of quitting.

The real story

In New Zealand, sales of cigarettes and tobacco are worth more than $1.3 billion every year.

Tobacco companies sell the only consumer product that kills people when used as the manufacturer intends.

Until recently, the tobacco industry has denied all or most of the health effects from smoking and secondhand smoke. But court action in the United States shows that for more than 50 years the tobacco industry has been aware of the harm smoking causes.

The industry is against smokefree policies because people who have to go outside to have a cigarette end up smoking less and even quitting. This means the tobacco industry loses profits.

The tobacco industry markets ‘light’ and ‘mild’ cigarettes as safer. In fact these cigarettes carry the same risk of lung cancer, heart attacks and other tobacco-caused diseases as ‘regular’ cigarettes.

Do you want to give them your money?

For more information on the smoking addiction and ways of breaking it contact Quitline on 0800 778 778 or visit www.quit.org.nz

When you register with our services, we’ll send you a copy of the The Quit Book. It’s packed with information to help you stop smoking.

Smoking is a powerful addiction.

Many smokers can’t imagine life without cigarettes or rollies. You might enjoy smoking. You might have found it too hard to give up in the past. We understand. We also want you to know the truth about smoking and how we can help.

The Quitline team – We’re on your side. 0800 778 778 www.quit.org.nz

This book was first developed as Having a Smoke – Having a Think for the Health Funding Authority in 1999. This redevelopment has been managed by The Quit Group (operating as Quitline).

ISBN 978-0-478-19361-9 (print)
ISBN 978-0-478-19362-6 (online)