Words of advice from students and staff on how to abide by the ban and get healthy
Jarod Powell
-Staff Writer-
Donna Halsband looked at an x-ray of her lungs. “There were these little white lines through it. I said, ‘Oh that’s where the problem is.’ The doctor said ‘No. The black part, that’s the problem.’ So my lungs are basically black,” Halsband said. “With a few little white lines through them, for oxygen.”
Halsband has since made smoking cessation a personal mission of sorts, particularly concerning students at STLCC-Meramec, where she works as service learning coordinator.
Halsband said she smoked for 25 years and quit with the help of a nicotine patch.
“I cut from two to one pack a day. I went November and December of that year with that cut in half. Then I used the patch again and quit,” Halsband said. “So I thought, okay, I’ve beat this.”
Halsband said that many of her ailments went away almost immediately after quitting.
“I was always getting a cold. I was always getting bronchitis. I was always getting the flu,” Halsband said. “When I stopped smoking, I got none of that stuff. Some people will say, ‘Oh, that’s normal,’ but that’s not normal–that’s because of the smoking. It messes with your body.”
Halsband is the service learning coordinator at Meramec. Halsband says she tries to engage with students who smoke, some still on campus, even after all STLCC campuses went “’smoke free.”’
“I’m trying to talk to students on campus, to make them aware,” Halsband said. “You almost become a split personality when you smoke: There’s the addict, and then there’s you. And the addict is gonna fight to the death for cigarettes.”
Smoking cigarettes is socially acceptable and easily accessible, and so it’s easy to forget the bottom line: If you don’t quit smoking, it will adversely affect your health, sometimes fatally.
One Meramec student, David Mueth, said that for him, having a reason to quit was essential.
“The act of smoking is a pleasurable experience,” Mueth said. “So, you’ve got to have a reason behind wanting to quit.”
Mueth said that one day, he sat down and figured how much money he had spent on cigarettes.
“I was paying to shorten my own life span,” Mueth said. “I couldn’t really fathom that.”
Mueth is a bartender and server at The Royale in St. Louis, and says that most of his co-workers smoke.
“It’s a very frustrating situation, watching your co-workers smoke,” Mueth said. “I saw my friend, who has ‘quit’ numerous times, on Facebook say something about wanting to quit. I mentioned that I think I’ve done my part, giving her trouble about smoking and saying how gross it is.”
Mueth said that a vacation was his catalyst for deciding to finally quit, after smoking for 15 years.
“I went on vacation and had significantly cut down by then. I only smoked when I went to work. So I decided while I was on vacation that I was not going to take any cigarettes with me,” Mueth said. “I came back and smoked on my next three shifts. But even then, I was actively trying to quit.”
Halsband said she understands addiction to cigarettes, as someone who has lived through it herself, but most people who don’t smoke simply fail to get it.
“People who don’t smoke will say, ‘Well, why don’t they just quit?’ And that just doesn’t happen. Some people can ‘just quit,’, but most people can’t.”
Mueth said that eventually, he simply made his mind up to quit, and has been smoke-free since last September.
“I have cravings in very fleeting moments,” Mueth said. “When on a warm spring night, and there’s a bunch of people who are sitting around, and you know they’re smoking cigarettes and having beers on the patio at work, that’s a pretty specific trigger.”
Mueth said he felt some of the longer-term effects of smoking.
“The mornings of waking up and coughing? That sucks,” Mueth said.
Service Learning Office Manager Debbie Corson, who works in Service Learning along with Halsband, said that many times, waiting to feel those symptoms as a reason to quit could be waiting too long.
“A lot of times, kids think, ‘I’ll start to feel out of breath, and then I’ll quit.’ But it can be a really sudden thing, where you find your lungs are totally shot,” Corson said.
Halsband said her health started failing 12 years after quitting, partly because of surgeries, but mostly because of smoking.
“Now I’m on oxygen all the time. I sleep with it on. I take a bath with it on. I’m on a leash,” Halsband said. “It’s really inconvenient.”
Halsband said that among the various methods of quitting on the market, there’s no one correct way.
“It’s totally individual,” Halsband said. “I’ve heard people who have had success with all of them. If something helps you a little, work with it to let it help you. There’ s no answer that works for everybody.”
Halsband said that support is also important. Meramec is hosting an eight-session smoking cessation program Freedom From Smoking through Febraury.”
Tobacco-free Missouri is a valuable program,” Halsband said. “They do a six-week program. Step by step, you give up cigarettes. They give you strategies. It’s a support group kind of thing.”
Halsband said that it could easily be done on campus, if the students were interested.
“The students have to request it,” Halsband said. “If there were 20 students on campus who said they wanted it, we could do it in a minute.”
Mueth, a Meramec student, said he agrees with the importance of a support system. He said that there are a few of his co-workers who are trying to quit right now.
“I just try to be supportive. I don’t get preachy about it, because I know they don’t want to hear it. If it ever comes up, I give them trouble. Ultimately, though, they’ve got to want to quit,” Mueth said.
Let’s Face It Saint Louis, a “smoke-free” initiative by the Saint Louis County Department of Health, features several “Quit Guides” on its website, http://letsfaceitstl.com, as well as information on medications, alternative treatments and online quit communities.
Halsband said she has a good life, but it is is very different than it was even five years ago.
“I can’t do a lot of things. I can’t work full time. I can’t do my own yard work. It makes life difficult,” Halsband said. She said she’s willing to help anybody who needs it, and wants it. “I’m willing to help anybody who needs it. I’ll hold their hands. Whatever I have to do.”
