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.

Rewards

Deserve?

Any of us who are trying to build a healthy relationship with food may want to give this a careful read. Similarly, those of us trying to stop smoking or other substances, can probably remember convincing ourselves that “I deserve this reward.” I understand that seeing a slice of chocolate cheesecake as a “reward” might […]

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Life Without Courage

My favorite painter apparently also said wise things. This pithy quote about courage calls into question the value of life without courage. Surely this sentiment has been echoed by countless people – famous and nameless. The truth is timeless – as old as humankind. Here’s how Vincent put it: “What would life be if we

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Soothe or Stimulate, Music Might be the Answer

When I’m in the car – especially for a long time – at some point I’ll start thinking about junk food. My thoughts about food are not usually related to being bodily hungry, but tend to related to feelings. Negative feelings (anxiety, anger, etc.) can certainly provoke me to want to do something to soothe

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You Season

Flu season arrives every year, evidenced by people wearing masks over their mouths and noses. The signs go up and people get flu shots. Nearly every year, there’s an a surge in flu cases right after Thanksgiving, attributed to the fact that people travel from different places and see different faces! It is well a

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Get Support, Be Support

The Great American SmokeOut began 50 years ago in hopes of raising awareness of tobacco’s negative health consequences and the numerous ways a person might choose to break up that complicated relationship. Each year since then, the third Thursday in November has been designated as the day when smokers are challenged to declare a “mini-quit”

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Me or Method?

Everybody falls short, falls off the wagon, fumbles, stumbles, slips up, gives up, or gives in. It happens…to everyone! Disclaimer: I don’t believe in jinxes or I wouldn’t be writing this.  We’re human and every human has the experience of failing. (There, I said it – the “f” word.) What happens after we fail is

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About QuittersWin

About 20 years ago I observed a way to look at addiction that seemed like it might be helpful. People I served in my tobacco cessation practice often seemed overwhelmed by the idea of quitting smoking. I felt that way myself every time I tried to quit smoking. Logic led me to look at ways

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One Step Closer

A journey to the top of a mountain or the journey to a neighbor’s house both begin with a step. Some climbs can seem dizzying and even impossible at times. But even a small step gets us moving and then – almost anything becomes more possible than it was when we were inert. Most of

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Hustling Hope

Hope is curious stuff. It’s always right in front of us and yet, so often, hard to see. Hope is undeniable, irrefutable, and evident, even in the midst of tragedy (perhaps especially there.) Hope has the power to change almost everything. Hope is always near, but there are eyes which cannot see it. Hope can

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Halfway

So here we are early in the seventh month, at about midpoint of the calendar year. Which begs the question, “how’s it going?” As half of the year has passed into the past, we might be compelled to think about the goals we have set, the journeys we’ve begun, the changes we’ve tried to make,

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