Find Your Forever Quit In 2013

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Each December, smokers across America decide to quit as one of their New Year's resolutions. Out of the more than 45 million smokers in the United States, nearly 69 percent want to quit. Tobacco-related disease is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States; smokers, therefore, need to be armed with all of the available information to make the best, most informed choices about the smoking cessation medications and resources available. Successful quitters, like Cindy, spend the season supporting smokers who are ready to take a step towards quitting in the New Year.

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"If I could go back, I'd just break that [cigarette] in half and that would be that," says Cindy, an EX Community member who is approaching two years quit. Growing up in South Dakota in the late sixties and early seventies, she was surrounded by smokers. Cindy's relatives, friends, and even ex-husband smoked. After being handed a cigarette as a teenager, she ended up becoming a two-pack-a-day smoker. As she approaches 51, Cindy has lost her ex-husband and sister to smoking-related illnesses.

"Cigarettes control you and if anyone tells you different they're just lying to themselves," she said. "They control you. They control your day. How you are going to run it, when it starts, when it stops. I don't think any smoker likes to admit that they can't handle it on their own. Once you admit that there is a problem, and make the decision to quit, there is a community of people waiting to help you succeed."

EX® is a free online quit smoking program, designed by Legacy®, to help smokers "re-learn" life without cigarettes. The site serves as a convening point for smokers who want to quit and collaborate on their successes and challenges in the difficult quit process. BecomeAnEX.org is filled with resources, information, and tools that were designed in collaboration with Mayo Clinic and with input from former and current smokers who have lived with this struggle, in order to provide smokers with a realistic approach based on evidence-based research. EX also provides smokers with a community of quitters, like Cindy, who can talk smokers through the struggle of quitting.

"Quitting happens in steps. Little baby steps to this point and each day you just have to tell yourself, I'm not a smoker any more. And you get through that." Cindy joined EX in January, 2011. Through the community, Cindy found a group of people who had been through every aspect of the quit that she experienced.

"Since I've quit smoking I realize it's opened a whole new life," Cindy states. "It's like I'm alive for the first time in 30 years plus that I was smoking, anything's possible. I will never let an addiction like nicotine ever take over my life like that again. More than 633 days smoke-free and I have found my forever quit."

Meet Cindy and read her story by visiting: http://community.becomeanex.org/pg/profile/bex_user_389767

Visit BecomeAnEX.org to plan a quit attempt this season or throughout the year.

EX^® is the national quit smoking campaign directed and funded by Legacy. The campaign helps smokers quit by providing free resources, including personalized quit plans and a robust virtual community where smokers can share stories and strategies about quitting. EX is the culmination of several years of research and testing, combining an understanding of the power of nicotine addiction with messages that resonate with and motivate smokers toward behavior change. The EX approach is peer-to-peer and focuses on "re-learning life without cigarettes" by encouraging smokers to think differently about the process of quitting. To learn more, visit the campaign's website, www.BecomeAnEX.org. Located in Washington, D.C., the foundation was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five U.S. territories and the tobacco industry. To learn more about Legacy's life-saving programs, visit www.LegacyForHealth.org.

Legacy helps people live longer, healthier lives by building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. Legacy's proven-effective and nationally recognized public education programs include truth^®, the national youth smoking prevention campaign that has been cited as contributing to significant declines in youth smoking; EX^®, an innovative public health program designed to speak to smokers in their own language and change the way they approach quitting; and research initiatives exploring the causes, consequences and approaches to reducing tobacco use. Located in Washington, D.C., the foundation was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five U.S. territories and the tobacco industry. To learn more about Legacy's life-saving programs, visit www.LegacyForHealth.org.

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SOURCE Legacy