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Celebrate a Fresh Start: Make Your New Year Smokefree!

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Quitting smoking is one of the most important steps you can take to improve your health. This is true no matter how old you are or how long you have smoked. There are proven treatments that can help you quit. Celebrate a fresh start. Make your new year smokefree!

2025

Ring in the new year smokefree

There are many ways to celebrate the new year, like making changes to improve your health and well-being. If you smoke, one of the most important steps you can take to improve your health is quitting smoking.

Find your reason to quit in the new year. Some people make New Year's resolutions. Others quit to be there for family and friends. Whatever your reason, quitting smoking will improve your health and reduce your risk of heart disease, cancer, lung disease, and other smoking-related illnesses.

However, some people don't know where to start. Don't worry. There are proven treatments that can help you quit.

Counseling

Counseling means talking to a quit coach, doctor, or other health care professional about quitting smoking. Counselors can help you make a plan to quit smoking. They can also prepare you to cope with stress, urges to smoke, and other challenges you may face when trying to quit.

You can get counseling help in different ways:

Quit-smoking medicines

Quit-smoking medicines can also help you on your quit-smoking journey. These medicines can manage nicotine withdrawal symptoms and cravings, helping you stay confident and motivated to quit.

When you stop smoking, your body and brain have to get used to not having nicotine. This might feel uncomfortable at first, but the withdrawal symptoms will get better over time if you stay smokefree.

There are seven medicines approved by the Food and Drug Administration to help you quit. They work in different ways. All have been shown to be safe and effective for adults who smoke cigarettes.

Some of these quit-smoking medicines are available over-the-counter, including the nicotine patch, nicotine gum, and nicotine lozenge. Other quit-smoking medicines require a prescription, like nicotine nasal spray and pill medicines varenicline and bupropion SR.

Talk to your health care provider about which quit-smoking medicine or medicines are right for you.

Counseling plus quit-smoking medicines

Your best chance of quitting cigarettes for good is by using counseling and medicine together. These treatments and resources for quitting may be available to you free of charge or may be covered by your insurance.

Elizabeth B.’s story

Elizabeth B. started smoking menthol cigarettes at age 18 because her friends and coworkers smoked. Within a year, Elizabeth was smoking about a pack and a half of menthol cigarettes a day. "Everything revolved around the ability to smoke," she said. "I was a prisoner to my addiction."

When Elizabeth was 42 years old, she had a stroke. Doctors advised her to quit smoking immediately, but Elizabeth continued to struggle with nicotine addiction for another 10 years. 

How Elizabeth quit for good

Elizabeth tried to quit multiple times using different methods. Then, at age 52, she finally found what worked for her. She set a quit date, threw away her ashtrays, changed routines connected to smoking, and used nicotine patches. Using a combination of strategies, Elizabeth finally quit smoking for good.

Diseases from smoking

Two weeks after quitting smoking, Elizabeth started dating her future husband, Stephen B. The pair enjoyed taking long walks together, until Elizabeth started experiencing numbness in her feet and cramping in her calves.

Elizabeth was diagnosed with smoking-related peripheral artery disease (PAD), a condition in which her arteries had narrowed and blocked the flow of blood to her legs. Just four months after she and Stephen married, Elizabeth had to have major surgery to restore blood flow to her legs.

In more recent years, Elizabeth developed kidney cancer. But she feels that PAD is her biggest challenge to everyday living. She can no longer take the stairs. Walking is painful but critical to saving her legs from amputation, so she and Stephen make taking walks a daily priority. "If I had never smoked that first cigarette, I may not have lit the fuse for PAD," she said. "My goal is to help other young people never start smoking."

Benefits of quitting smoking

Quitting smoking has health benefits at any age, no matter how long or how much you have smoked. Over time, people who quit smoking see many benefits to their health. After you smoke your last cigarette, your body begins a series of positive changes that continue to improve for years.

Quitting smoking:

  • Improves health and quality of life.
  • Reduces the risk for premature death.
  • Reduces the risk for cardiovascular diseases, like heart disease and stroke.
  • Reduces the risk for 12 types of cancer.
  • Reduces the risk for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
  • Improves health for people who already have heart disease or COPD.
  • Improves the health of pregnant people and their babies.

This new year, celebrate a fresh start. Start your quit journey today!

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Content Source:
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion; Office on Smoking and Health