Smoke-Free in 30 Days
For anyone who has smoked or has family or friends who smoke, you know that quitting is a challenge. The process can be confusing, overwhelming, and often frustrating.
As the director of the smoking cessation service at Columbia University Medical Center, Dr. Seidman has spent over 20 years helping smokers quit successfully. The program available in Smoke-Free in 30 Days was first presented to smokers outside of his clinic when he appeared as a featured expert on The Oprah Winfrey Show with Dr. Mehmet Oz in early 2008. After the segment, more than 200,000 people downloaded this earlier version of the program, which they called Breathe Easier from the Oprah.com website.
The Book…
Provides a tailored program for a wide variety of smokers to help them overcome the varying obstacles that they face.
Guides smokers through a 30-day program, complete with a day-to-day CALENDAR, which offers smokers step-by-step directions on how to become successful nonsmokers.
Shows how the reasons offered for smoking in early ads and Hollywood movies continue to form a key part of the mythology around smoking addiction.
Offers clear explanations and clarifications on how to use Nicotine Replacement Therapies (NRT) and other medications most effectively. A big problem is that smokers often use NRT incorrectly and have many misconceptions about it. This book provides sound advice on how to get the most mileage from what NRT has to offer. This information is difficult to find in a ready-to-use format in the current marketplace.
The Program…
The Smoke-Free in 30 Days Program recognizes that many smokers have not only become addicted to smoking physically and through behavioral conditioning, but have also become emotionally dependent on smoking. What does this mean? And how is this program different from other approaches? For many smokers, bumps in the road to going smoke-free—also called “relapse triggers”—are their highest hurdles. The most common pattern concerns stress, which can also be thought of as emotional discomfort and negative emotional experiences. This is the number one reason smokers give for smoking and for the resumption of smoking after they quit.
The Smoke-Free in 30 Days program provides proven strategies to prevent relapses, especially those based on a lack of emotional confidence. Smoke-Free in 30 Days focuses on the efforts readers can make, actions they can take, and concrete strategies they can follow to make stopping smoking as easy and successful as possible.
Helping the Hard-Core Smoker:
A Clinician’s Guide
Daniel F. Seidman & Lirio S. Covey (Editors)
From the Foreword by Joseph A. Califano, Jr., President, National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Columbia University:
Helping the Hard-Core Smoker: A Clinician’s Guide belongs on the desk of every physician, psychiatrist, nurse practitioner, dentist, psychologist, elementary and secondary school teacher and drug and alcohol counselor in the nation.
The essays in this book present a wide range of treatment options for nicotine dependence, from nicotine and non-nicotine medications to short-term individual psychotherapy, group therapy, and hypnosis, as well as techniques for preventing relapse among former smokers. The potential efficacy of these treatments will provide hope to the practitioner attempting to help the hard-core smoker quit. Any practitioner looking for help to encourage smokers to stop, and practical suggestions to provide that help, could find no better resource than this extraordinary collection of essays.
All Praise for Smoke-Free in 30 Days
—Harvey Cox, Hollis Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard and author of The Future of Faith
“Dan Seidman has given us a thoughtful, concise, and invaluable book. Read it. Recognize yourself. Quit.”
—Dr. Allan M. Lans, former Director of the Employee Assistance Program for the New York Mets
“Dan Seidman wrote a splendid book regarding the challenge of going smoke free. He is a thoughtful, articulate writer who puts the issues in concrete terms for those who struggle with quitting to those who are on the treatment side…. Smoking being a big health problem, this is a valuable guide for everyone. I highly recommend this most informative book.”
—Herbert Pardes, M.D., President and CEO of New York-Presbyterian Hospital and New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System
“Dr. Seidman brings a wealth of 20 years experience to his approach to helping smokers. The wisdom learned through years of running a successful clinic is now available to you in this book, through a program which has already helped thousands achieve freedom from smoking! Perhaps you could do it alone, but why not make this as painless as possible? Why not make this task of becoming smoke free as short as possible? Like a guide on a journey, Dr. Seidman has been along the path many times before. He can help you avoid the pitfalls and dead-ends which demoralize so many smokers and lead them to go on smoking for many more years and to jeopardize their health. This in fact is the philosophy of the book: to make this journey as easy as possible for the smoker and those family and friends who care about them and wish them every success in becoming smoke-free. Read on and find a wealth of resources and information inside.”
—From the FOREWORD by Mehmet Oz, M.D., author of You: The Owner’s Manual
“Although smoking rates are at a modern low, that is no comfort for the 43 million people who still smoke, most of whom would like to quit. Smoke-Free in 30 Days contains the distilled wisdom of Daniel Seidman, who has been helping smokers quit for 20 years. In this helpful book Seidman describes the various types of smokers and presents practical ways to help them quit. Give this book to someone you care about who would like to quit but feels they can’t. You couldn’t give a more important present.”
—Steven A. Schroeder, M.D.,
Distinguished Professor of Health and Health Care, Department of Medicine
Director, Smoking Cessation Leadership Center
University of California, San Francisco
Past President and CEO, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
“The importance of stopping smoking for everyone, particularly those with diabetes, cannot be overstated. Dr. Dan Seidman has led the smoking cessation program at the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center, and it’s terrific that so many more people can now have access to his wonderful program. This book will a make a great deal of difference to so many people.”
—Robin Goland, M.D., Co-Director, Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center, Columbia University Medical Center
“Smoke-Free in 30 Days is a compact, prescription-filled, revolutionary book that will help thousands overcome this very physically and psychologically addictive habit… Dr. Seidman clearly knows his field and demonstrates his compassionate understanding of what we all go through when trying to break a negative and harmful habit… Wisely, he has taken a thorough, multi-dimensional approach that starts with identifying the kind of smoker you are, making you aware of your triggers, and preparing you for a quit date... Smoke-Free in 30 Days provides what is missing from so many books that promise to help you quit smoking: a plan to prevent relapse, which is essential to any program for habit change and is a method supported by NIH’s research of successful programs… I highly recommend this important book to anyone who wishes to be smoke free in 30 days. This book belongs in the offices of doctors and therapists as well as the hands of anyone who has tried to quit smoking.”
—Dr. Neil Fiore, author of The Now Habit and Coping With The Emotional Impact of Cancer
“As a cardiologist who specializes in preventive medicine, I find Dr. Seidman’s book an invaluable tool in addressing the difficult task of convincing patients to quit smoking… Dr. Seidman recognizes that each patient has their own unique story and reason for smoking, and methods that work for one individual may not work for another. I am certain that by using Dr. Seidman’s book, I will be able to add years of quality life to my patients who currently smoke.”
—Joseph Porder, M.D., cardiologist, Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York City
“For smokers, tobacco cessation is the single most important thing that a person can do to improve their health. That is certainly true for oral health. Besides the yellowing and staining of the teeth and oral malodor that invariably accompanies smoking, periodontal disease (gum disease), tooth loss and oral cancer are directly linked to smoking… Dental patients who smoke must be urged to quit. That is much easier said than done, and Dan Seidman’s book is an important aid for smokers who make the decision to improve their health. Dentists and members of the oral health team can play an important role here. They must be supportive and review the benefits of smoking cessation… Dentists who advise their patients to quit should be familiar with this book, and refer patients to it when a decision is made to quit. Smoke Free in 30 Days is not only informative, but also is written in a clear and concise style. The day-to-day approach allows smokers to take this a step at a time, accomplishing a series of tasks and building confidence as they proceed.”
—Ira B. Lamster, D.D.S., M.M.Sc. Dean, Columbia University College of Dental Medicine
“Smoke-Free provides the best approaches for effectively breaking the smoking habit and to help people remain smoke free for life. Dr Dan Seidman’s program effectively combines proven behavioral techniques together with available nicotine replacement aids, to deliver the maximum success for everyone who has tried to quit smoking, but has failed.”
—Wayne Gattinella, President & CEO WebMD
“After his well-received appearance on “Oprah” in 2008, Dr. Daniel Seidman decided to write Smoke-Free in 30 Days to share the wisdom he has gained from 20 years of research and work with smoking-cessation clinics. His advice is clear and easy to understand, and he is careful to discuss a wide range of smoking habits, triggers, withdrawal symptoms and coping mechanisms. Seidman is a proponent of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), and his advice tends to lean heavily on this particular tool; those who don’t want to use NRT may find this book of limited use. However, for those who decide to follow Seidman’s program, his 30-day schedule for quitting smoking—which comprises the second half of the book—will provide them with specific and manageable step-by-step tasks and strategies to help them accomplish the goal of going permanently smoke-free.”
—Kate Pritchard, bookpage.com