The Wake

Like many people, I started smoking because my friends did. I was 16. I started out as a social smoker, but then it became my choice form of stress-relief. A cigarette was my accessory, my excuse and one of my favorite pastimes.

In spite of warnings from my mother, who is an oncologist, I smoked daily for three years. I got two tobacco tickets before I turned 18, but I still just couldn’t believe smoking was that bad. I was the lone smoker outside of lecture halls in sub-zero temperatures, which definitely wasn’t social smoking. Nothing was a good enough reason for me to quit until about a month and a half ago. I came home from class on a chilly Tuesday and decided to go for a run. For as long as I had smoked, running had been a relaxing hobby that I enjoyed very much. But this run was different. It sucked. During this three-mile “run,” I was winded the whole time and had to stop and walk about four times. I could finally tell that smoking was catching up with me. When I got home, I was left wondering how I was going to rid myself of this horrible addiction.

That same day, I received an email that gave me hope. The University is part of a Quit and Win program, which is a competition for students to quit smoking during the month of April. The top prize is a drawing for a $3,000 gift certificate, but what really got me was the availability of free nicotine replacement therapy (gum, lozenges, patches), which normally are quite expensive. All I had to do was take a urine lab test to prove that I smoked, register with a smoke-free friend and remain smoke-free for the month of April. The winners will have to take a second lab test to prove that they abstained from smoking throughout the month.

Registration for our area’s program was available to students at the University of Minnesota—Twin Cities, Hennepin Technical College, St. Cloud State University and St. Cloud Technical College. According to Maria Rangel, the Quit and Win project coordinator at Boyton Health services, this is the second year in a row that the Hennepin Medical Society has sponsored the program for the university. She explained to me that Quit and Win is actually an international program supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), and the instillation of a branch in our area was suggested by a former Quit and Win participant who worked at Boynton.

The international program is organized every two years and is based on a similarly successful idea in Finland. It began in 1994, with thirteen participating countries. By 2004, the program was available in seventy-one countries with about 700,000 participating smokers. The program’s organizers see this as a way to raise awareness of smoking-related health issues and help smokers quit.

Last year there were more than 800 participants from our area’s four participating colleges. This year there are 606 total participants, and 391 of which are from the University of Minnesota. These numbers make sense when you consider that last year the grand prize was a trip to the Maya Riviera in Mexico for two.

I did not quit because of this year’s grand prize of $3,000. I quit because of the strain that smoking was causing my family, my mind and my lungs. So far, I have been taking advantage of the free nicotine replacement lozenges, and I have never felt so empowered. The Quit and Win program has made me realize that I can quit something that kills roughly 5 million people each year. It helps that my goal is a month without smoking, because I don’t have to tell myself that I will never smoke another cigarette. It’s likely I will be tempted to light up again when I’m at parties or studying abroad, and I can’t say that I will always be able to resist. I doubt that I will ever smoke like I used too, but I know that I will never again need a cigarette because I’m walking to class, driving my car or simply trying to fit in.

Anna Ewart is a Voices guest columnist and welcomes comments at .