Talking to Family and Friends Who Smoke

You’ll probably find that most of your family, friends or coworkers who smoke cigarettes will be supportive of your decision to stop smoking. So ask them not to smoke around you for a few weeks. They’ll understand.

Some of these people, however, won’t be as helpful — they may smoke cigarettes right in front of you and even make fun of your decision to quit smoking. But those people are a part of your life, too, even if smoking cigarettes isn’t. So part of Re-learning Support is re-learning how to deal with some of these difficult situations with important people in your life. Here are some examples of how you might handle unsupportive people:

Who will support you when you quit? Go to the Support Exercise and identify your support system.

Finally, if some people continue to give you a hard time or smoke cigarettes in front of you, simply avoid them for a while. If that’s not possible, get additional support. Here are some options:

• Become active in the online quit smoking community here at BecomeAnEX.org — The EX Community. This is especially useful if you’re living with a smoker and quitting smoking. It gives you a way to stay strong when you are at home. Treat it like your buddy, a girlfriend, your lifeline. It will help you when times get hard during your quit attempt. And remember — just like the rest of the EX Plan, it’s free for you to use.

• Quit smoking with a friend. Quitting smoking with someone else can be very helpful, especially when one of you feels weak. But just remember, you’re quitting for YOU, not your friend. If your friend changes his or her mind and starts smoking cigarettes again, that doesn’t mean you have to.

• Find a quit smoking coach or a local stop-smoking resource by calling 1-800-QUIT-NOW.

• Enter a residential quit smoking treatment program such as the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center.