| "...because something commonly happens in a particular way 'in the real world' then this should be considered the best way." Smoking cessation experts often seem to have to be telling people to dismiss real world experiences. Usually I see a little different variation of the comment above. Common statements I have seen are something to the effects that while it is likely that a person may at times encounter real world quitters who succeeded by using non-recommended techniques, usually meaning no pharmaceutical intervention or in what this study is showing, people who used no set quitting date, that these people are just the exceptional cases. What the experts are trying to do in effect is discredit observations made by people, making them think that the occurrence of such experiences are really rare. The author above was at least accurate enough to say, "While it is true that most smokers who quit do so without any specific behavioral support or pharmacological treatment..." The rest of the comment was going on to try to give the impression that there would have been even more successful quitters if people would just do what smoking cessation experts say should work as opposed to doing what actual quitters continually say has worked for them. The tactic being employed here is to leave the impression that we could just have a whole lot more successful quitters if people would just utilize the miraculous effective products out there that actually help people to quit. There is also the perception being portrayed that there really are very few ex-smokers out there because most who have tried to quit have done so unaided and everyone just knows how improbable it is for people to be able to quit in an unaided attempt. Medical professionals and the general public are being misled to believe that quitting smoking is just too plain difficult for people to do on their own and that the odds of a person actually quitting on their own is really pretty dismal. This would all make perfect sense if not for the fact that we have so many successful ex-smokers in the real world. In America, we have more former smokers than current smokers. Over half of the people who used to smoke have now quit smoking. From the comment made above it should be clear to all that most of the people who have quit either did not know of professional recommendations for quitting or chose to ignore professional intervention techniques. Yet these people successfully quit anyway. I think that this is an important point to hit home with all medical professionals. The medical profession has got to start to help people to realize the real potential of success that individuals do have to quit smoking instead of perpetuating the idea that quitting is just too hard for an individual smoker to expect to actually succeed without help. While this article should have been about planning techniques, the original author and a few experts weighing in on the discussion have tried to turn it into a referendum on selling pharmaceutical interventions. Nicotine replacement products have been around for over two decades now-- and a significant percentage of smokers have used them to try to quit smoking. If a product has been around for decades, used by millions of people worldwide, AND, has been truly effective, it should be easy for most health care practitioners to come up with lots and lots of successful patients, colleagues, family members and friends who have quit with these products. As I said in my original commentary above: " I don't believe that there is a single professional smoking cessation "plan your quit" advocate who will suggest other medical professionals should take a similar survey. For if they did their study results would almost certainly be called into question when the health care professional starts seeing the results of his or her real life survey. The experts will end up having to spend quite a bit of time trying to explain away the discrepancy, using rationalizations like the people who planned their quit "didn't do it right" or didn't "plan" long enough or were "just more addicted smokers." In all honesty, I don't expect my encouraging of real world observations by health care professionals to have much impact with smoking cessation experts. They are going to profess to believe whatever other experts keep telling them to believe or, what the funders of their studies believe. I do however believe that health care workers who are on the front line and actually deal with patients who smoke are going to be a bit more critical and analytical about this. If they spend any time talking with patients they are going to see through the rhetoric and the rationalizations of the experts. I have always tried to disseminate the message that just because something works in the lab or in study conditions doesn't necessarily translate to the fact that the process will work in the real world. The smoking cessation experts seem to have to work on the basis that just because something works in the real world doesn't mean that it is a good approach if it doesn't seem to work in a lab. I have high hopes that medical professionals really wanting to help their patients are going to be more influenced by what they see is successful than by being told by the experts what should be successful, but somehow not replicable in their own practices. | 
Free Forum Hosting
Important Announcement
Prev Message
