Tobacco Cessation Class Was A Life Saver

Linda Rodeheaver and Smoking Cessation Class Leader Mike Wilburn look over the notebook and other cessation aids that helped her quit her smoking habit after 40 years.

Linda Rodeheaver tried several times to quit smoking, but each time she soon started back up when life got tough. Now she hasn’t smoked for 7 months, and it all started with a brochure she picked up at a doctor appointment.

What was different this time that made so she could quit smoking after more than 40 years?

The brochure was for the Garrett County Health Department’s Tobacco Cessation Class, and Linda was serious enough this time to sign up for a class.

“It was the notebook they gave me before I started the class,” Linda said. “I had two weeks to plan and think about why I wanted to quit. It also helped me think about why I smoked.”

She made a list of the positive things that would happen if she quit, like not needing to paint the rooms of her house every other year because of the residue from smoking, and not needing to have someone else watch her grandkids inside while she went outside to smoke. She added to her list every day, and calculated the money she would save from giving up what she called her “costly bondage.”

“One night I woke up and couldn’t breathe because of the mucus,” Linda said. “I thought I was going to die.” That was added to her list – NEVER wanting to feel like that again.

“I wish everyone would get that notebook and answer those questions,” said Linda. “All the other times I didn’t write down the answers. The notebook helped me the most because it made me really think.”

The next Cessation Class is scheduled for Tuesday, September 18, at 5:30 p.m. at the Garrett County Health Department’s (GCHD) Grantsville Office at 28 Hershberger Lane. Throughout the ten-week course participants receive resources to help change their habits, including a notebook with many tools, group support from others who are also trying to quit, and free cessation aids (nicotine patches, nicotine gum, or the prescription drug, Zyban).

“I see people smoking now, and I think, ‘I was like that,’ ” Linda said. “Now I won’t have to go outside to smoke in a blizzard, and I can use the money I’m saving from not smoking to buy something for myself, or take my grandkids swimming or out for lunch.”

Additional classes are scheduled to begin on Wednesday, November 7, in the GCHD conference room in Oakland at 5:30 pm.

Participants, and the general public, also have access to the Maryland Tobacco Quitline at 1-800-QUIT-NOW. This quitline gives tobacco users access to a “Quitting Coach” for help seven days a week.

For more information about the upcoming class or to register, contact the Garrett County Health Department at 301-334 7730 or 301-895-3111. The classes, cessation aids, and Maryland Tobacco Quitline are funded by the Maryland Cigarette Restitution Fund Program.

By Diane Lee, Public Information Officer, Garrett County Health Department