What To Expect
Our Stop Smoking Programme takes place for an hour per week for up to 12 weeks. You don’t need to bring anything with you to our sessions apart from a desire to stop smoking – we provide the Nicotine Replacement products (patches, gum, lozenges etc) and all educational materials. And the best bit is that it’s all free (you just pay prescription charges, like at your GP's surgery or any other Stop Smoking Service).
- Appointment times/days to suit
- It’s pretty difficult to live in the UK and not hear that smoking is bad for you. We believe that you can make up your own minds, so we won’t lecture you about the evils of smoking, or try to make you feel bad about it, because that’s just annoying (and it doesn’t work, either!).
- Environment
Week One – Preparing to Quit
This is the preparation day for Quit Day next week. We’ll explain the purpose of the course, and there will be a general discussion on why you have chosen now to try to stop smoking. We’ll introduce the concept of Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT), and will show you the products that are available. We’ll carry out Carbon Monoxide (CO) testing and an explanation of why we do this each week.
Don’t stop smoking before you come to this session! Yes, that sounds pretty bizarre, doesn’t it? But if you stop smoking before you’re properly prepared, you’re less likely to succeed. Let us help you prepare for your Quit Day.
Week Two – Quit Day
This is the day when we ask you to stop smoking.
It is expected that you will have decided which NRT product to use by this week. We’ll carry out CO testing and have a detailed look into how to cope after quitting today. You will receive one week’s supply of NRT.
TODAY MUST BE YOUR QUIT DAY!
Week Three
We’ll carry out CO testing and lead a general discussion of any problems or difficulties experienced with staying away from smoking. We’ll ask you to share your own ideas at this stage, and give you some information on overcoming difficult situations. You’ll receive this week’s NRT supply but please note that we will not issue NRT if you are still smoking.
After this, the sessions follow the same pattern:
The session starts with CO testing and a general discussion of how to cope with any problems you have found while staying smoke-free. It is at this stage that people’s motivation may start to fall, leading to greater difficulty, so we’ll encourage you to carry on sharing ideas and keeping up your NRT use. And of course, we’ll give you this week’s NRT supply.