Healthy Oxford Hills sponsored a celebration for people who quit smoking.
By Gail Geraghty
Staff Writer

NORWAY – Healthy Oxford Hills celebrated the struggle to quit smoking with a Quit & Win Celebration Tuesday that drew around 20 people.

Two women co-workers at Stephens Memorial Hospital who successfully quit smoking over the winter, Wilhelmiina Wiinikainen and Mary Anne Taylor, won top cash prize drawings of $500 and $250, respectively.

In order to entice people to attend – whether their efforts at quitting smoking had been successful or not – registrants in the Quit & Win program had to be present in order for their names to go into the drawing.

Cash prizes of $100, $50 and $25 went to three people who served as “buddies” to support the efforts of people signed up for the program. Several generous door prizes donated by local businesses were also given away in a drawing.

The Quit & Win program has been used successfully by Healthy Oxford Hills and other tobacco-free coalitions across the state. The coalitions are funded through a landmark federal tobacco settlement case.

Maine receives around $50 million a year in settlement funds, said Dennise Whitley, director of advocacy and health initiatives for the Maine Heart Association.

Maine leads the nation in terms of using “every penny” of its tobacco settlement funds to help people quit smoking and lead more healthier lifestyles, she said.

The settlement pays for the Maine Tobacco Helpline, 1-800-207-1230, a free resource to help people quit smoking and then stay tobacco-free.

Keith Pray of Lewiston, a Quit & Win success story, quit smoking two years ago. He now helps others to quit, and told the group that quitting smoking amounts to a savings of more than $1,600 a year on average.

“A year after I quit, I had an amazing urge” to smoke, he said. “I just had to walk away.”

Whitley, who quit smoking 15 years ago, said she spent the first few years constantly repeating the same mantra: “I choose not to smoke at this particular moment.”

It takes time, but the effort at staying smoke-free is worth it, she said.

“Smoking is one of the number one risk factors for heart disease,” she said, with obesity next.

“Your best shot at a long and healthy, productive life is to try to take ahold of the things that you can control” in terms of physical health, she said.