We're committed to a smoke free work environment and supporting our staff to quit smoking.

Smoking is one of the principal, avoidable causes of poor health in our workplaces and our community.

A smoke free environment is a more productive environment.

Our Eight Step Smoking Cessation Program is available, free of charge to our staff, members of their family and their friends. In resolving an addiction people need all the support they can get from the people they live with and mix with.

We recognise that smoking cessation is a process and that some people may need to repeat the process a number of times before they are permanently smoke free.

SMOKE FREE STRATEGY

The SMOKE FREE program addresses five key issues.

1.   Being assured of the benefits of becoming smoke free.

2.   Examining why you've been smoking and what it's doing to your body and

      your life generally.

3.   Looking at the costs and benefits of not smoking.

4.   Developing a strategy to become smoke free with the assistance of

               •      meditation

               •      autosuggestion

               •      exercise

               •      healthy eating

               •      distraction.

5.    Putting the strategy into action

THE EIGHT STEP PROGRAM TO FREEDOM

STEP 1 - PICK YOUR DATE

Chose a date when you will give up smoking.

The date will be sometime between 2 and 4 weeks from now. We will call that day F-Day, where F stands for freedom. This is the day you start your smoke-free life.

Announce to other people that you're going to quit smoking on that day.

Write the date down in your work diary.

Post a note on the fridge door.

STEP 2 - MAKE A LIST

Make a list of the 10 reasons why giving up smoking is a good thing to do. Add up the current financial cost. Saving a few grand ought to be a big incentive.

Frank Woolworth said 'I never got anywhere while I tried to do everything on my own.'

Ask a mate to give you support and encouragement in between now and your F-day.

Let your smoking friends know that you'd like their support; you want them to respect your desire to quit smoking. Tell them you don't want them to offer you cigarettes or do anything that will sabotage your intention to be smoke free.

Particularly get the support of your family. If other family members are smokers move heaven and earth to get them to quit at the same time as you do.

STEP 4 - SET RULES

Set some rules for smoking - like

• not smoking inside the house

• not smoking in the car

• not smoking before morning tea time

• ...

STEP 5 - COUNT YOUR SMOKES

Over the period between now and your F-Day, keep a record of the number of cigarettes you smoke each day.

Aim to smoke fewer smokes between now and F-day.

(It's a pity you can't buy packets of 10 cigarettes in this country and restrict yourself to one packet a day. I wonder who thought that one up? Most people aim to buy and then smoke a packet of 20 a day and achieve their aim with remarkable accuracy.)

Start smoking later each day and increase the time between the last smoke and when you go to bed.

For instance have your first smoke at morning tea time and your last smoke immediately after tea.

Aim to get down to 6 or less smokes a day. Treat smoking as a treat. You wouldn't have 20 cups of coffee a day so why would you have 20 smokes?

Up until F-Day we recommend you divert your attention from smoking. You'll then be programmed for success after F-Day.

As in all our rehabilitation programs we suggest you adopt the program as a full-time proposition and seek support from a wide range of modalities.

• Pamper yourself - have a spa and a massage every week

• Go for a holiday

• Read more

• Go to the pictures a couple of times a week

• Don't go to places where there is an association with smoking

• Don't hang around people who smoke

• Watch less TV

• Don't smoke inside

• Chew gum

• Buy a juicer and drink fresh fruit and vegetable juice

• Eat good food

• Drink more water

• Exercise a couple of times a day

• Focus on improving your health generally

When F-Day arrives, you can smoke as usual during the day, but save the last two cigarettes for a simple ceremony that evening.

Invite some friends or members of your family to watch you smoke your last two cigarettes.

The ceremony requires you to smoke the first of the two cigarettes inhaling much more deeply that usual, and then, immediately after finishing it, you begin to smoke the second (and your last) cigarette.

Give yourself only two minutes to smoke as much as possible of that cigarette. After the two minutes, butt it out. Make sure the butt becomes a symbol of the beginning of your smoke free life. (Take a photo of the occasion.)

And there you have it. SMOKE FREE.

STEP 8

Write to the Minister for Health and tell him you want a rebate on your health insurance!