By Dr. Adewale Troutman
Ben and Mittie Shobe quit smoking because of the love of their grandson, 8-year-old Desmond Milliner-Bryant. Ben, 57, started smoking when he was 16. “A friend of mine had a pack of cigarettes and said ‘hey, let's smoke!' so we did. It was that simple,” he said. Ben's wife, Mittie, 52, started smoking when she was 18 and working in a Louisville tobacco factory. “Every day the employees received a free pack of cigarettes. They started piling up at home and one day I just said ‘well, they're free so I might as well smoke them,'” she said.
But one day Ben and Mittie's grandson, Desmond, came for a visit and ask, “Granny, smoking causes cancer … and cancer makes people die. So why do you do that? Why do you smoke? Don't you know you could die, Granny?” Even though his grandparents never smoked in front of him, Desmond still knew they were smokers and it worried him.
For Ben it happened when he and Desmond went swimming. Ben was a former lifeguard as a young adult and always enjoyed swimming. He wanted his grandson to be skilled in the water. While they were swimming, Ben encouraged Desmond to go into deeper water to test his skills, knowing he could easily get him back to safety if he struggled. But it was Ben who ended up struggling.
“I got him to safety okay but I was exhausted! I just couldn't breathe easily and it really wore me out!” said Ben.
Ben and Mittie are setting a great example for their grandson. In Louisville , more African-American males smoke than any other group; one-third of African-American males in our city smoke. So Ben and Mittie are making a huge impact not only in their own lives but in the life of their grandson as well.
So how did they do it? After smoking for more than 30 years, how do you quit?
Ben and Mittie called 574-STOP and enrolled in the Cooper Clayton Stop Smoking Program offered by the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness and many of our community partners.
The Cooper Clayton program is 13 weeks of a one-hour class, once a week, where participants learn such things as how to identify situations or stressors that create the urge to smoke and how to overcome them without lighting up. The classes are free, but participants are urged to buy the $10 workbook. Graduated nicotine replacement products are encouraged and also offered free or at a discount to those who are income eligible. Many of the class facilitators are former smokers. Group support also seems to be a key to success.
“Two things really impressed us,” said Ben. “Our facilitator was wonderful. She was a former smoker so she understood our struggles. And I don't think we could have done it without being in a group. All of us were working together to overcome this and we realized we weren't in it alone — we had partners in the struggle.”
Ben and Mittie have already noticed big improvements in their lives. “I now get up and walk 5 miles every morning!” said Mittie. “Before I quit, I could MAYBE make it a mile and a half.”
For Ben, food tastes much better. “Food tastes great! I have to really watch it. So far, I've only gained 10 pounds but I'm also making other good lifestyle changes. I'm drinking much more water and I'm taking the stairs at work rather than the elevator. Before I quit, I could hear myself wheezing. Now I'm breathing much easier.”
All of us will be breathing easier on July 1. That's when Louisville 's new and improved smoking ban takes effect. The new and improved law prohibits smoking in virtually every public building and workplace in Louisville , including restaurants, bars, bingo halls, bowling alleys, offices and private clubs. This is a huge step for our city to take to protect the health of all of our citizens.
Secondhand smoke causes an estimated 62,000 heart disease deaths and 3,000 lung cancer deaths among nonsmokers in the United States each year. A Class A carcinogen for which there is no safe level of exposure, secondhand smoke has also been linked to chronic lung ailments, such as bronchitis and asthma, low-weight births, ear infections, hearing loss in children, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
If you're a smoker, find your inspiration and quit like Ben and Mittie did. We can help you. Call us at 574-STOP or check out our Web site at www.louisvilleky.gov .
