|
by
richard cox
For more than a decade Health District smoking
cessation counselor Bear Jack Gebhardt has been helping smokers enjoy
their cigarettes – and enjoy giving them up.
In addition to his role at the Health District, Gebhardt is also the
author of two books on smoking cessation, one of which – “The Enlightened
Smoker’s Guide to Quitting” – has just been reprinted by BenBella Books.
Originally published in 1998, “The Enlightened Smoker’s Guide to Quitting”
draws from lessons Gebhardt learned during his 20 years as a smoker.
“People get started smoking because it’s fun. This book is designed to
make quitting fun,” Gebhardt says.
Gebhardt notes that smoking begins as an adventure for many people as they
seek to become part of the “in crowd.” The trick to quitting, he says, is
to make it into an adventure – an adventure that leaves the ex-smoker
“enlightened.”
“We can use the same door to get out as we do to get in,” he observes.
Gebhardt makes it clear that fear, guilt and shame are seldom if ever
effective in getting a person to quit smoking. That same no-pressure
approach also characterizes the Health District smoking cessation program.
“I’ve been called the mellowest stop-smoking coach in the world, and I try
to live up to that,” he says. It’s an approach that seems to work: the
Health District smoking cessation program boasts a successful quit rate.
The six-week program, which has sliding fees for residents of the Health
District, is available as a class or as one-on-one sessions with Gebhardt
or the program’s other trained cessation counselor, Norma Pomerleau.
Gebhardt and Pomerleau work with smokers to help them develop a
personalized plan that increases their chances of successfully quitting.
Participants can receive free nicotine replacement products – patches, gum
or lozenges – while enrolled, and they get half their fee back just by
completing the program.
But for some the greatest reward will be the promise of a smoke-free life.
“We help people enjoy not smoking,” Gebhardt says. More importantly, “We
help them quit and stay quit.” |
