Quit Smoking

Public Tobacco Cessation Community Groups
Quitting smoking is more successful with support. Public tobacco cessation support groups are offered at the People’s Place Community Center in Gardner, MA and in the Briggs Conference Room in Athol, MA.

On-site Tobacco Cessation Classes
Professionally facilitated classes at your location bring a high-value and life-changing resource to the people you care about. Workbooks and interactive teaching materials give every smoker a chance to develop their unique Quit Plan.

Groups are always offered without cost to participants – no cost, no co-pay, no insurance requirements.
QuittersWin Core Beliefs and Group Guidelines:

    • Everyone in the community has something to learn from everyone on the community and everyone in the community has something to teach to everyone in the community.
    • No one in the community is as strong, wise, brave, or capable as everyone in the community.
    • Out of respect for all speakers and all listeners we limit talking to one member at a time.
    • Because we understand that our human condition can lead us to hold untruths and cause our perceptions to be skewed, we make every effort to keep our minds open and honestly consider other explanations for things we think we “know.”
    • Out of this diversity of understanding, we hope to discern ultimate truth for the good of all, without need to hold unhelpful or unhealthy beliefs out of some motive of ego.
    • As each of us attains our noble goals, all of us grow stronger, wiser, and more capable.
    • In spite of our individual imperfections, diverse experiences, and past failures, as a community we hold confidently to the certainty that freedom from addiction is possible and is, in fact, close at hand!

Compared to illicit drugs or excessive alcohol use, tobacco tends to be more…

Accessible – It’s legal and available in LOTS of forms in LOTS of stores.
Acceptable – Tobacco’s stigma (while considerable) isn’t as great as the stigma of staggering down Main Street or being found in a gutter with a needle in one’s arm.
Affordable – As expensive as tobacco is, if we consider the cost of “a day’s worth,” tobacco is often cheaper.
Addictable – Because nicotine can be delivered very quickly to the brain, each puff may make a tiny ‘impression’ on the smoker’s brain. A smoker may puff hundreds of times in a single day and make hundreds of tiny impressions! Furthermore, those impressions get associated with the coffee cup, steering wheel, telephone, familiar face, or familiar place in ways that make those triggers really ‘stick’ in a smoker’s brain. Subsequently those behaviors, faces, and places become cues, telling  the smoker to want a cigarette.
Absolutely more LETHAL! -Tobacco kills more Americans each year than homicide, suicide, drugs (legal and illegal), alcohol, motor vehicle accidents, and HIV/AIDS combined!

Quitting smoking or other unhealthy relationships with a substance is more successful with support.

Truth unleashes the power to change everything

The Power of Truth

We have probably all heard some variant of the expression “you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” As a facilitator of groups I have countless times witnessed how one person’s truth can also set other people free. That’s why I am such a proponent of gathering in groups. Sharing one’s …

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besochemps

BESOCHEMPS

BESOCHEMPS If you haven’t yet heard of the 5-Headed Dragon, BESOCHEMPS, you’re either new here, or I haven’t been doing my job. (Please don’t scroll away yet – we aren’t a cult and this discussion about a 5-Headed Dragon is neither frivolous nor foolish.) Over twenty years ago I began serving brave folks intent upon …

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Freedom isn't free

Freedom

“Freedom isn’t free,” we’ve heard the phrase, perhaps more times than we can count, but have we counted the cost of our freedom? Can we count the cost? Where would we even begin? How do you tally a price that was paid in the time, sweat, pain, blood, and lives of veterans over the span …

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StateWithoutStigMA

Yes or No?

Yes or no? Oh, if only it was that simple! A few months ago I noticed a billboard on my drive to one of my consulting gigs. It was sponsored by an organization that serves addicted individuals. The sign said, “Addiction is not a choice. It’s a disease.” Upon reading it my first response was …

Yes or No? Read More »

Massachusetts Temporarily Bans All Vaping Products

Yesterday afternoon the Governor of Massachusetts, Charles D. Baker, declared a state of emergency and announced at a press conference that the state will ban the sale of all vaping products. While precise details are not available at this time (exact starting date of the ban, duration, etc.,) comments made during the presser make it …

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Why do I want? How Else can I satisfy this want? Never need to do that again!

W. H. E. N.

We all WANT to do things that we know aren’t good for us from time to time. And feeding those urges with occasional splurges may be OK now and then. But when it feels like the habit has us on its leash, it’s time to take our control back!

Slow down, look around, and we never know what wonder we might see!

Oh, I See!

Who’s outside today (or who was recently?) What wonders are waiting for us – sometimes right under our nose (or our feet?) When we take a few moments to really stop and look around – look closely around – we might find something truly amazing or at least something that’s interesting. ‘Spent any time with …

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Smile makers

Smile-makers

Just a quick question for your Monday: Here’s hoping there are more smiles on your way! Remembering and revisiting those things that used to make us smile can be #GoodMedicine. So, consider dusting off your paint brushes, canoe paddles, dancing shoes, or any other smile-makers that may be stashed in your closet or basement, and …

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