SAP group to help teen smokers who want to quit

By Alisha Weight

The Student Assistance Program at Tyrone Area High School is forming a new group for students who smoke and are trying to quit. This smoking cessation class will meet eight times on Thursdays in February and March.

“We also welcome individuals to the group who want to stop using chewing tobacco,” Kathy Muller, Prevention Educator for Blair County Drug and Alcohol, Inc., said. She has been offering smoking cessation classes for six years.

If students are interested in this group, they can sign up in the TAHS guidance office or in the nurse’s office. The SAP office will contact them to set up a scheduled session.

“Trying to quit is not easy,” one TAHS junior said. “I got into smoking from my friends, not the best idea. I am regretting it a lot now that I can’t breathe.”

According to the Not on Tobacco program created by the American Lung Association, most student smokers think smoking is cool or the “good” thing to do because they have stress or friends who smoke.

Muller uses N-O-T because it is a state-of-the-arts anti-tobacco program designed especially for high school students who smoke and are trying to quit. Smoking cessation group members will focus on why they smoke and what encourages them to smoke so they can try to narrow their reasons down.

“I smoke,” a sophomore student at TAHS said. “I guess I could say is because of stress, and a lot of it has to do with my friends.”

N-O-t has a 21% quit rate, which is higher than similar programs. N-O-T’s research shows that almost 97% of students liked the program and 87% agreed it was helpful.

“Sometimes seeing [the reasons to smoke and not smoke] can impact a person enough to say, ‘That’s it. I quit,’” Muller said. “The cost alone is often the motivation, although the health impact is really the most important reason.”