Carers offered an Easyway to stop smoking
Ditching the evil weed the Easyway and benefiting their health and pockets at the same time is the aim behind a stop smoking initiative for carers in West Dunbartonshire.
The Princess Royal Trust West Dunbartonshire Carers Centre in Clydebank and Allen Carr’s Easyway To Stop Smoking are to run a one-day course for carers who smoke.
Allen Carr founded the world’s leading method of stopping smoking 25 years ago and the one-day course explores the reasons why smokers light up and explodes them all as myths. The course has very high success rates and most people who do the course stop smoking immediately and 60% are still not smoking after 12 months – which is why the Carers’ Centre Manager Kim McNab is so keen to use it.
Kim explained: “Carers often neglect their health to look after their loved ones. Smoking is very expensive too and many of our carers do not work because they are looking after someone so the cost of cigarettes can really eat into their budgets.
“Stopping smoking will also benefit the person someone cares for, as obviously they will no longer be exposed to the effects of passive smoking.”
West Dunbartonshire is an area of Scotland that is particularly affected by poor health. It has higher than normal rates for heart attacks, lung cancer and strokes. Lifestyle changes, such as stopping smoking, can help reduce a person’s chance of contracting these life-threatening conditions. Local Labour MSP Jackie Baillie will be presenting certificates to those who complete the course.
The normal cost of the course is £230 per person and this comes with a money-back guarantee. Jim McCreadie and Paul Melvin from Allen Carr’s Easyway Scotland will be offering 20 places for free to the centre.
Jim said: “The Allen Carr method offers an immediate and permanent cure for smokers. What’s more, it doesn’t involve any drugs and has no side effects.
“We don’t use any nicotine patches which simply keep smokers addicted to nicotine. We give people all the information they need to realise that smoking doesn’t help them in the way they think it does and the biggest problem isn’t a physical addiction because nicotine leaves your system very quickly.
“Everyone believes smoking cures stress and helps smokers to relax. At the session, we prove to smokers this just isn’t true and so the desire to smoke again is removed completely.”
The course has already had great success for carers in the south west of Glasgow. The Princess Royal Trust Greater Pollok Carers Centre ran the course in October 2008. Twenty five carers attended – including one 70 year old who had smoked for 40 years. Since that time, very few of those who took the course have had a cigarette.
West Dunbartonshire Carers Centre looks after unpaid carers and young carers. There are an estimated 83,499 unpaid carers in the area (out of a total population 93,378*) doing what can often be a 24-hour seven days a week job. The centre, which also has an office in Dumbarton, offers services to carers such as one-to-one support, information on carers’ rights and benefits entitlement, health groups, training, help with filling in forms and services for young carers.
The course will be run at the West Dunbartonshire Carers’ Centre on Friday 22 May. For further information about the work of the centre, phone Kim McNab on 0141 941 1550. For more information on Allen Carr’s Easyway Scotland, phone Jim McCreadie on 0131 449 7858 or visit the website at www.easywayscotland.co.uk
*Census 2001