Advance with MUSC Health

Don’t let your goal to quit smoking tobacco go up in smoke

Advance With MUSC Health
December 20, 2021
A smiling woman breaking a cigarette in half.

Quitting smoking is a popular New Year's resolution, but for many, the best intentions go up in smoke.

To paraphrase a recent ad, quitting smoking is freaking hard - harder than kicking a drug or alcohol habit, patients tell Benjamin Toll, Ph.D., director of MUSC Health's Tobacco Treatment Program.

That's not to say it can't be done. Quitting smoking and tobacco for good CAN, be accomplished with tobacco cessation treatments. Thousands do it every year, says Toll, who is also a professor of public health sciences and psychiatry at MUSC.

As for timing? "New Year's is a good time, but I tell patients that the best time is always 'right now.' We encourage people who smoke to quit as soon as possible because it's the single best thing that they can do to improve their overall health."

Because breaking up with nicotine is hard to do, Toll urges people to seek behavioral and therapeutic help instead of going it alone.

"It's so important that people participate in behavioral counseling and a pharmacotherapy program that includes FDA-approved medications like nicotine replacement therapy to reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms," Toll says. "These include over-the-counter and prescription-strength therapies such as varenicline, the nicotine patch, inhalers, gum and lozenges. Taken separately or in combination, they can double your chances of quitting smoking for good."

MUSC Health offers inpatient and outpatient tobacco cessation programs. Both are extensive, and the outpatient program is open to any MUSC Health patient who wants to quit smoking, Toll says.
Inpatients who smoke and are admitted to a MUSC Health hospital in Charleston, Florence, Marion, Chester or Lancaster are visited by a tobacco treatment specialist who assesses and counsels each one and offers a prescription for nicotine replacement therapies.

The outpatient program operates in two ways. MUSC Hollings Cancer Center staff contact every cancer patient who smokes and offer behavioral counseling and medications treatment. Staff also work with patients referred from physicians across the MUSC campus.

During the pandemic, most outpatient sessions have been conducted via telehealth and feature one-on-one sessions with a counselor and a pharmacist who oversees patients' management of medications.

The sessions, which can range from 4 weekly or biweekly meetings up to 8 depending on a patient's needs, cover planning for quitting, such as a quit-day checklist, along with management of withdrawal and cravings, the importance of a support network, triggers and how to deal with relapses.

"Quitting takes time, planning and persistence, and the more prepared and knowledgeable someone is, the more successful they'll be at managing stressful moments," Toll says.
Toll begins his counseling session by asking patients what they hope to gain from quitting smoking.

"I want to hear what is motivating someone to quit," he says. "Of course, their health is important, but it's common for people to focus on other reasons such as saving money and pleasing family members."

Toll and clinical pharmacist Emily Ware, who joins him in telehealth sessions with patients, say the rewards and benefits flow both ways.

"Helping our patients quit smoking is huge," Ware says. "Getting a patient to be smoke-free is everything, and probably just as rewarding for us as it is for them. We really become part of their family, and we're cheering for them and rooting for them the entire way."

To make an appointment with staff at MUSC Health's Tobacco Treatment Program, call 843-792-9101.