News from the Noteworthy from Tobacco-Free Communities: Delaware, Otsego and Schoharie

Yes, There Is Hope, and Help, for Quitting

The first anniversary of my mother’s death from Alzheimer’s disease at age 86 will be on November 14 this year. On November 20, six days later, comes the Great American Smokeout, an annual event since 1977 that encourages smokers nationwide to quit at least for that day. My mom smoked for 40+ years, up to two to three packs a day before she finally quit at age 61, in 1999.

Since beginning my position at Tobacco Free Communities: Delaware, Otsego and Schoharie in December 2019, I have learned smoking affects every organ of one’s body, and increases the risk of contracting many harmful and lethal diseases, including Alzheimer’s. I understand much better now why my mom struggled to quit, why it is so important to keep trying to quit, and to not feel ashamed if you relapse. I also hope if you smoke, you use GASO as an opportunity to try to quit.

My dad, two brothers and I didn’t think my mom would ever be able to quit. She had tried several times before, but they didn’t take. My mom had also inherited her dad’s, my grandpa’s, strong physical health, which seemed to immune her from respiratory or heart diseases or cancer. But she wasn’t fully immune, especially as she aged. In the years before quitting permanently, my mom was getting bronchitis annually, sometimes several times a year. She was diagnosed with sleep apnea in her mid-70s, but had suffered from it for probably a decade before.

My mom also had depression and anxiety for decades before being diagnosed and treated for it in her early 50s. I now know that the nicotine in tobacco often worsens them. Nicotine gives smokers and vapers pleasure and relaxation initially that only lasts a few minutes, followed by the need for more. Their anxiety increases because of the need for more.

Like 70 percent of American smokers, my mom wanted to quit long before she finally did. As with my mom, most smokers try multiple times to quit—an average of seven attempts—before it takes hold. Two events pushed her to the finish line. One was her doctor telling her, after a checkup about age 59, that she was on the brink of developing serious emphysema and dying from it. Doctors talking to their patients about tobacco use and cessation, especially combined with nicotine replacement therapy, has the biggest impact on tobacco users making efforts to quit.

The other event was exactly what I do in my work—creating tobacco-free spaces that can help smokers who want to quit to do it. In 1998, my mom came out to San Diego, where I lived with my husband-to-be at the time, to help plan our wedding. Since we didn’t have room in our small graduate school apartment, she stayed at a friend’s condo, who did not allow smoking inside. With her recent grim diagnosis, my mom decided to use that situation to stop smoking.

It took her about a year, with the nicotine patch, gum and therapy. I was surprised when my mom told me nicotine was more addictive than heroin. My mom also educated me on the hardest part of cessation: having to quit all the daily activities she did while smoking—reading, writing letters, watching TV, socializing with other smokers.

Sadly, I still didn’t really get it. When my mom told me a year after she had quit that she missed it, I was stunned and angry. How could that be, when it cleared her lungs, stopped the bronchitis, improved her dental cleanings and exams improved, and prevented her from dying?

I now know that while the anti-smoking campaign of the 1980s-1990s helped millions of smokers quit, it also shamed smokers if they didn’t, and even for starting it in the first place. I didn’t know that 90 percent of adult smokers began before age 18, when you are likely to get addicted quickly and have a hard time quitting. That is why the tobacco industry targets youth in its advertising; they will have lifelong customers if they start as teenagers.

We still believe smokers can simply quit if they choose to. But addiction, especially to a normalized, legal substance, doesn’t work like that. If it did, almost all tobacco users would quit. And shaming tobacco users often makes it harder to quit.

I am positive my mom lived much longer than she would have had she not quit at age 61. But she might not have had sleep apnea or Alzheimer’s had she not smoked, or quit earlier.

In 2023, Alzheimer’s was ravaging my mom’s memory, but she could still recognize me. I told her during one visit, “One of the bravest, hardest things you ever did was to quit smoking, Mom.” “Oh really?” she replied, smiling. She didn’t fully understand, but I think she knew she had done well.

To learn more about the Great American Smokeout, visit www.cancer.org/cancer/risk-prevention/tobacco/great-american-smokeout. For help quitting tobacco, go to www.nysmokefree.com.

Jennifer Hill is the community engagement coordinator for Tobacco-Free Communities: Delaware, Otsego and Schoharie.