Posted on Jan. 14: Leaving the pack behind

This time Kathie Fairman aims to quit smoking for good. And she hopes to get a boost from a smoking cessation contest being run this month at McMaster as part of National Non-Smoking Week, beginning Jan. 20.

About a decade ago, the clinic aide in McMaster's Campus Health Centre quit her 12-cigarette-a-day habit cold-turkey. Before that she had smoked for eight years, beginning in her late teens.

She stayed off cigarettes for three years, until she says stress and trying to cope with family illnesses broke her resolve. Now she plans to try again, likely through some combination of Zyban and the anti-smoking patch.

Fairman also hopes to get some motivation from a contest called Let's Make a Deal, which will begin during National Non-Smoking Week (including Weedless Wednesday on Jan. 22).

The event is being promoted at McMaster by the Campus Health Centre, including Employee Health and Wellness and the Student Health Service.

Debra Earl, employee health education nurse, says a smoking cessation promotion on campus makes sense for several reasons. Besides raising awareness of the dangers of second-hand smoke to non-smokers, she says the University's no-smoking policy prohibits smoking in campus buildings, including residences.

“Even if people are not ready to quit smoking, they could try for 24 hours. The whole approach is that quitting smoking is one day at a time,” says Earl, whose office provides literature and resources and has run smoking cessation workshops for faculty, staff and students.

This year's contest  the third at McMaster — will run for four weeks. It will include categories for people who quit smoking, smoke less, cut out social smoking, or refrain from starting to smoke (for non- or ex-smokers).

Registration for the contest takes place Jan. 15-17. Participants can enter draws for prizes in each category.

Catherine Ahern is running the contest as the project co-ordinator for Leave the Pack Behind, a smoking cessation program that involves McMaster along with nine other colleges and universities in southern Ontario.

“The primary focus of the contest is to the get Leave the Pack Behind out there,” says Ahern, an anthropology master's student doing public health research for her thesis on social and cultural aspects of infectious diseases.

Aimed mostly at university students, the Leave the Pack Behind program offers information, peer counselling and research about smoking cessation. Ahern says her office is currently testing a new pair of resource booklets among students for their effectiveness in helping smokers quit the habit.

Fairman is already down to five cigarettes a day and hopes to have quit smoking by the end of January. She says she's driven partly by guilt over being the only smoker in her office.

Taking part in a contest will help too. “The more people that know you're trying to quit, the more pressure that's on you to quit,” she says. “They give you encouragement and help you.”

For information about the contest and the Leave the Pack Behind Program, visit the Web site at www.leavethepackbehind.org and follow the links to McMaster, or call ext. 26051. For information about employee smoking cessation programs and resources, visit www.mcmaster.ca/ehealth or call Debra Earl at ext. 26050.