Byline: Jill Burcum; Staff Writer
CATCHING UP // AN UPDATE ON SUBJECTS THAT WE HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT.
Danny Gwinn says cigarettes still have a hold on him eight months after he checked out of the inpatient stop-smoking program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
He is one of 10 people who allowed the Star Tribune to report on their week of treatment last April.
Now, seven of them say they have avoided cigarettes. At least two others have relapsed after participating in the $3,200 program, one of a few nationwide to offer inpatient nicotine-dependence treatment.
'I can't count the hundreds of times I've wanted a cigarette,' Gwinn said. 'What keeps me off them is the ... the knowledge I gained at Mayo about the tobacco companies. What they do to hook people really [ticks] me off and keeps me going.'
Although Gwinn says he doesn't smoke, he still recalls how good cigarettes tasted to him and how much he liked to smoke with friends. To him, secondhand smoke is a little whiff of heaven.
Others who went through the program found their own ways to stop smoking for more than half a year - one of the first important quitter milestones. Studies of earlier graduates of the program found that 45 percent don't smoke after one year.
Everyone in Gwinn's group left the Mayo with one week as nonsmokers under their belts and optimism about staying that way. But as he was packing to leave, Russell King, a Ford dealer from Canada's remote Northwest Territories, glanced out the window with a worried look and said that the really hard work was just beginning.
Ahead of them were family obligations, stressful jobs and busy lives to be resumed outside the tobacco-free haven of the Mayo. They still needed to withdraw from nicotine, the powerfully addictive substance in cigarettes.
'It hasn't been easy,' Gwinn said in November. The six others who returned the newspaper's calls wouldn't disagree.
On the road
For King, the reality of a cigarette-free life hit soon after he checked out. He and his wife, Mary King, had driven to Rochester in their motor home from Hay River, Northwest Territories.
King once had enjoyed smoking on the road. He felt lost without the constant hand-to-mouth motions of smoking. Ahead of him was a long, boring drive and no cigarettes.
King was prepared. On his body were four nicotine patches delivering about the same amount of the chemical that he'd get during a normal day of smoking.
One of the bedrock ideas of the Mayo program is to use nicotine replacement products - such as the patch - to wean people off nicotine and minimize cravings. King wasn't a big fan of the patches. But he believed they helped on the drive back and the months that followed.
'There were a couple of times when I just about said the heck with it and got a pack of cigarettes, but it passed,' he said.
King no longer uses the patch, but he carries a nicotine inhaler that looks like a plastic cigarette. A puff offers a hit of nicotine vapor to ease cravings.
King's inhaler is empty. He just chews on the plastic when the urge to smoke strikes. That still happens at his office and in the morning when he first gets up.
'My key to success, it's stupid. I just chew on the inhaler. It's like having a pacifier for a baby,' King said.
Hank Crouse, a businessman from Nacogdoches, Texas, also grappled with cravings.
At his home airport, Crouse had to walk past the smokers' lounge, a place he'd sat in many times before plane departures. A sense of dread filled him as he drew close. Would the smoke make him crazy? Would he lose control and rush inside to light up?
The fear proved worse than the reality. Crouse says he passed the lounge with relative ease.
Like King, Crouse said he relied on stop-smoking aids and believes they helped. He wore nicotine patches through August and continued taking Zyban - an antidepressant that also curbs cravings - through September.
His company, which makes exterior door frames, didn't get easier to run, Crouse said. But the stop-smoking aids took enough of an edge off his cravings that he was able to manage.
Now, Crouse said, he goes several days without thinking about cigarettes. Cravings arise only on long car rides.
While Crouse gained about 10 pounds, his ability to breathe easier (he has emphysema) has more than offset the disappointment about the weight.
'I think you could quit without having to spend the kind of money on the program I did,' Crouse said. 'But for me, it's what I needed.'
Not everyone needed stop-smoking aids to fend off nicotine cravings. Harold Renner, a municipal employee from Bismarck, N.D., and Jay Crane, an Ohio businessman, found that their commitment to quitting got them through.
Don Simoneau, a mining company executive from Ontario, thought of the group when cigarettes beckoned during a visit with an old fishing buddy who smoked.
'If those other guys can do it, so can I,' Simoneau said.
Still struggling
Not everyone won the battle with cigarettes. Gene Cameron, a retired cargo ship captain from Florida, started smoking again in July. The remaining two group members have not returned the Mayo's regular phone checks.
Cameron doesn't know why he resumed smoking.
'I just went nuts and smoked a cigarette,' Cameron said. 'It just seemed like a real good thing to do. It's like my brain goes bananas.'
Cameron has emphysema. He smokes for a few weeks until he has trouble breathing and then stops. When he feels better, he starts again.
'I'm a nicotine addict, period,' he said. 'It's like when you want chocolate cake, you've got to have it.'
Dr. Richard Hurt, the founder of the inpatient program, said Cameron and other graduates who resume smoking can get follow-up counseling. The staff will help former patients resume nicotine-replacement therapy to fight cravings, he said.
'We'll do whatever we can,' Hurt said. 'This is just like any other medical condition. If someone had a flare of rheumatoid arthritis, they'd come back for help. This is no different.'
- Jill Burcum is at jburcum@startribune.com.
Quit smoking
Don Simoneau
Mining executive
Thunder Bay, Ontario
Simoneau wore several nicotine skin patches daily to fight off cigarette cravings. After noticing he had no chest hair left after pulling off so many patches, Simoneau decided will power was all he needed. The real test came while visiting an old fishing buddy with whom Simoneau had once enjoyed lighting up. His friend smoked a pipe. The aroma was tempting, but Simoneau says he resisted by thinking of how successful others in his Mayo group had been. 'If those other guys can do it, so can I,' Simoneau said.
Still struggling
Gene Cameron
Retired cargo ship captain
Apollo Beach, Fla.
Cameron says he stayed away from cigarettes for three months. One day the cravings became too much. Cameron 'just went nuts' and smoked a cigarette. Once he'd started, he couldn't stop. Cameron, who has emphysema, says he needs to stop because smoking makes it harder to breathe. Still, nicotine is amazingly powerful, he says, and he can't resist. 'I even sympathize with dope addicts now. I know how they feel.'
