COVID Big Quit
Smoking can weaken your immune system and put you at higher risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19. You don’t have to quit alone. Join a community of people like you who are making a change for their health. Subscribe to our mailing list or share your journey in the Big Quit Facebook Group to get a free quit wristband.
#1: Get Inspired
While most Americans understand that smoking cigarettes causes serious health effects, those who start smoking as youth or young adults may cause them to miss important life milestones and can deeply affect the daily lives of their family members and friends.
The new stories featured in this year’s Tips From Former Smokers® (Tips®) campaign offer two perspectives: people living with serious illnesses caused by smoking, and those caring for loved ones with smoking-related disease.
Read Quit for your loved ones at CDC.gov/tips
#2: Make a Plan
Call 1-800-QUIT-NOW
1-800-QUIT-NOW is a toll-free number that will connect you with a highly trained quit coach who can help you handle your cravings and triggers, support you through setbacks, and get you nicotine replacement medication.
Set a QUIT DATE
Set yourself up for success by choosing a day in the next 2 weeks so that you can prepare for your quit day. Choose an ordinary day (not tomorrow), and mark your calendar.
Tell a FRIEND
Accountability is key when you’re trying to quit. Find someone who can help you through the hills and valleys of your quit journey. Be sure to have frequent video calls to talk through any struggles or to celebrate wins.
#3: Take Home Resources
Pathways to Freedom: Leading the Way to a Smoke Free Community© is a free resource designed to assist individuals and community leaders in their efforts to become smoke free, and end smoking-related diseases and death among African Americans.
This documentary-style video is a theoretically based smoking cessation program specifically targeting the African American community. Its development was supported by grants awarded to the University of Miami from the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society.
#4: Stay Woke
The tobacco industry is preying on us and using our own people to do it.
It’s time to end Big Tobacco’s strategic killing of the Black community with menthol cigarettes. California’s We are Not Profit campaign features facts about how the tobacco industry uses African American civic leaders to manipulate the Black community.
Share videos, audio clips and graphics to help your entire community stay woke.