Quitting & Winning

On February 10, 52 people tried to quit smoking as part of the Quit & Win campaign sponsored by local health care providers.  Twenty-seven men and twenty-five women pledged to quit smoking for one month.  They did so in the hope of winning up to $500 in prize money.  Most signed up at the Valentine’s Festival on February 9.

The exact number of participants who quit for one month isn’t known.  However, it required contacting only fourteen entrants to find five prizewinners.  Thus, roughly one third of the Quit & Win participants made it through the quit month smoke-free.  Most of the others were able to quit for part of the month before relapsing.  Many report having greatly cut down.  Some have plans to try again soon to quit.

Eric Wells of Crawfordville was the big winner.  In addition to the money he has saved not buying cigarettes, Eric earned the top prize of $500.  Eric says his key to success was keeping himself very busy.  (Pictured at left:  Eric Wells receives winning check from Lynn Artz.)

Rhett Strickland of Sopchoppy won $250 for his achievement.  Having recently lost his father-in-law to lung cancer, Rhett was determined to quit smoking.  He obtained a prescription for Chantix, a non-nicotine medication, and that has made it fairly easy for him to stop.  He also had great support and encouragement from his mother-in-law.

Jeff Hansen (pictured at right with winnings) of Medart succeeded in quitting his 2 pack-a-day habit – and won $100.  He got advice and free nicotine gum from the Quitline.  Unfortunately, the nicotine gum arrived after he’d already gone without cigarettes for a while so he continued to quit “cold turkey.”  Though he’s put on a few pounds, he’s determined to stay away from cigarettes for good.  He’s had to work hard to quit and doesn’t want to put himself through that again.

Lee Williams and Angele Yohn of Crawfordville agreed to quit smoking together.  They’re no longer buying 2½ packs of cigarettes per day between them.  Lee won the $75 cash prize.  Angele has noticed that her sense of smell has returned.  Now she’s busy cleaning their house to get rid of the lingering smell of cigarette smoke.

Jermaine Brown, an employee of St. Mark’s Powder, won $25 for quitting smoking.  He’s getting married soon and his fiancée really wanted him to stop smoking.  He also wanted to prove to himself that he could do it.  So he signed up for Quit & Win at his worksite and hasn’t had one puff since.

{sidebar id=1}Nearly 100 people entered the drawing for nonsmokers.  Pamela Timmons won the $100 nonsmoker prize.

Great care was taken to assure that the drawings to select the prizewinners were fair and above board.  On Friday, March 7, in the presence of impartial observers at the Health Department, contest officials drew one nonsmoker entry from among all the nonsmoker entries received.  In the main drawing, all 52 entries were drawn one at a time and the entries were numbered in the order in which they were drawn.  When the quit month ended on Sunday, March 9, contest officials began calling the first drawn names until five successful quitters were found.  Witnesses were contacted to confirm that these five entrants had indeed stopped smoking for the entire month.

The major sponsors of Quit & Win were The Wakulla News, Tallahassee-Memorial Family Medicine – Wakulla, Wakulla Medical Center, Wakulla Health Care Task Force, Wakulla County Health Department, Wakulla.com, and the Big Bend Rural Health Network.  Numerous other health-related organizations donated helpful items for participants’  “survival kits.”

For more information about Quit & Win, please contact Lynn Artz (926-8756; <lynn_artz@hotmail.com>) or Cathy Price (926-7125 x276;  <cathy_price@doh.state.fl.us>).

This article originally pubished on March 17, 2008.

Written by :

Lynn Artz

 

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