By OSEYE T. BOYD
oboyd@muncie.gannett.com

Kent Blair doesn’t want to go to church smelling like sin. So he smokes all his cigarettes before his head hits the pillow on Saturday night.

Blair, a smoker since 15, has struggled for years to stop. He once quit for a year. Then again for two years. Now he’s back smoking, and he wants to quit. He gets the ball rolling with his weekend ritual. Some Sundays, he smokes shortly after church; sometimes he waits a day or longer. Since his last successful attempt, his goal is to go 30 days without a cigarette.

He hasn’t made it yet.

“Once you bum one then if you’re still around that person, if you’re still around someone with cigarettes, you’re going to bum another and another,” Blair said. “Before you know it, you’re on your way to the tobacco outlet to get your own pack. I’m trying to quit again. I guess I’ve just not been totally in the right frame of mind.”

Blair’s desire to quit, but the difficulty in overcoming his addiction is common among smokers. For many, today’s Great American Smokeout will be the first step in an arduous process to quitting. They need support from family and friends and many may need cessation products such as nicotine patches, gum or lozenges to be successful.

“If you want to quit, there’s help available,” said Cheryl Mathews, education and client service coordinator at Cancer Services ECI-Little Red Door. “It’s hard work. Very few people can just throw them in the trash and go on. … The more times you quit the better at it you get. Eventually, people can be successful for life.”

The Great American Smokeout couldn’t come at a better time for Hoosiers. Just a week ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 26.1 percent of Indiana adults smoked in 2008, making the state’s smoking rate the second highest in the nation. Indiana was sixth in 2007.

Free cessation counseling, a hotline, as well as discounts on cessation products are available to Delaware County residents who want to quit, said Cecilia Williams, program coordinator of Tobacco-Free Coalition of Delaware County.

Smokers who call 1-800-QUIT-NOW and enroll in the cessation program can receive two weeks worth of free cessation products.

All the desire, support and stop-smoking products in the world won’t matter, though, if a smoker isn’t ready to quit. Blair thinks that’s been his problem in the past.

“We can give you all the tools and the resources for quitting smoking that are available, but if you don’t have the will power, if you are not mentally ready, you won’t stay smoke free,” Williams said. “You need to be ready. It’s all about will power first and foremost.”

Contact news reporter Oseye T. Boyd at 213-5830.