The Iowa State Student Health Center and Mary Greeley Medical Center are co-sponsoring a “Stop Smoking” program to help members of the Iowa State and Ames communities kick the habit with a “positive approach.”

Randy Mayer, interim supervisor of prevention, education and outreach at the Student Health Center, said the Wellness Center has been offering similar programs for many years.

The “Stop Smoking” program consists of nine meetings that each lasts two hours. The first session is tonight at 7 and will be held at the Student Health Center.

Mayer said there is still time for interested persons to sign up for the program.

The first four sessions are focused on getting people ready to quit, he said.

“Not succeeding in quitting is often a result of poor planning. Most people can’t just quit without first doing some preparation,” he said. “People learn to smoke and must learn to quit.”

The next session works on analyzing why, when and how much the person smokes.

“Then we help the participants find replacements for the things that smoking helped them do,” Mayer said. “Relaxing, dealing with stress, keeping their hands busy and filling time are some things that we work on.”

During the third week of the program, the group quits together.

“After that, we work on long-term maintenance issues like nutrition and weight control, exercise and other aspects of a healthful lifestyle,” he said.

The program allows each individual to choose a method of quitting that will work for them, Mayer said.

“We discuss the patch, gum, nasal spray, inhaler, Zyban and even going cold turkey,” he said.

Mayer said each method has its own “pros and cons.”

“We let each participant decide which will work best for him or her,” he said.

The cost of the program is $20 for students and $25 for non-students. The cost includes a $10 deposit, Mayer said.

“The deposit is returned if every session is attended,” he said. “We do that because we’ve found that attending every session is a good predictor of success.”

Mayer said the program is open to everyone.

“It works best to have a range of ages in the group,” he said. “The group members have a lot to teach each other about quitting.”

Teamwork is one of the keys to quitting smoking, Mayer said.

“The group members don’t want to let each other down, so they are able to succeed where many might not have alone,” he said.

Linda Dutton, secretary for Women in Science and Engineering, went through the program a couple of years ago and is still smoke free.

“I had been personally thinking about quitting smoking, and I opened the newspaper, and there was an ad about the ‘Stop Smoking’ campaign,” she said.

Dutton said the program was an effective experience.

“The program had a very positive approach,” she said. “I assumed that it would focus on the negative effects of smoking, but it never did.”