Motivated to Quit
Maria Mendoza, a client with the Williams
Consent Decree program, no longer centers her
life around smoking. For more than 10 years,
she had lived in a nursing home where she
spent most of each day in a room designated for
smokers. She smoked a pack and a half of
cigarettes each day in that room.
Upon joining the Health Department’s smoking
cessation program, she began meeting with a
tobacco treatment specialist, attending weekly
group sessions, and using NRT products. She
says the things she learned about cigarettes
through the specialist motivated her to quit.
“I didn’t realize how many toxins are in a
cigarette,” said Mendoza. “When I knew what I
was inhaling, it was scary to think of what those
chemicals were doing to my body.”
As part of the program, she submitted a daily
count of how many cigarettes she smoked.
“Having to inform someone how much I smoked
each day also helped me to quit,” she said.
She began to reduce the amount of cigarettes
she smoked each day, using the nicotine patch
and gum to ease her cravings. In a few months’
time, she made it down to smoking two
cigarettes per day. On Christmas Day of 2014,
she officially quit altogether and has been
smoke-free for more than a year.
Successfully quitting motivated her to address
other issues in her life. For instance, she lost
weight, changed her diet to address her
diabetes, and got a part-time job as a cashier at
a local store.
Maria Mendoza says she feels like she
has a new life after she quit smoking as a
result of the Health Department’s
smoking cessation program.
40% of the Health Department’s
cessation clients reduced or quit
their tobacco use.
“I feel like I have a new life,” she said.
9