![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/955\/2019\/12\/Tommy-Hawkins-225x300.jpg\")
Tommy Hawkins, Bus Mechanic #1, had already quit smoking for a month when he contacted the Wellness@Work Tobacco Cessation program. Like many people, he started to smoke at a young age, quit, started again, quit again, and so on.<\/p>\nTommy Hawkins, Bus Mechanic #1, had already quit smoking for a month when he contacted the Wellness@Work Tobacco Cessation program. Like many people, he started to smoke at a young age, quit, started again, quit again, and so on.<\/p>\n
One month earlier, he was diagnosed with heart problems.\u00a0 In the emergency room, the doctor gave him a nicotine patch and strongly advised him to quit smoking.\u00a0 The lesson stuck and he remained quit.<\/p>\n
So why get involved with the Tobacco Cessation program if he was already quit? \u00a0During his HRA appointment, Liska Lackey suggested he contact Barbara Silver, Tobacco Treatment Specialist, for support, encouragement and motivation.<\/p>\n
Barbara advised Tommy to keep using the nicotine patches to help him stay quit. \u00a0Through the program, he received patches for free, which was very helpful.<\/p>\n
Tommy said that most employers don\u2019t offer a Tobacco Cessation program like ours and he was glad to take advantage of it. He liked the one-on-one in-person interaction with Barbara. The patches and keeping busy at work reduced cravings and prevented relapse, especially when he encountered stressful situations.<\/p>\n
He reports that he has saved money (and<\/u> received $100 for quitting for 6 months).\u00a0 He is sleeping better, and his house and clothes don\u2019t smell from smoke anymore. \u00a0Tommy recommends the Wellness@Work program to anyone thinking about quitting tobacco.<\/p>\n
If you are a Chapel Hill Town Employee, and want to quit smoking, vaping or using smokeless tobacco, contact Barbara Silver, 919-904-4848 (phone or text), barbara_silver@med.unc.edu. The program is free and includes support and free medication. If you quit using tobacco for 6 months, you receive $100 gift card. Quit for another 6 months or 1 full year and receive another $100!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tommy Hawkins, Bus Mechanic #1, had already quit smoking for a month when he contacted the Wellness@Work Tobacco Cessation program. Like many people, he started to smoke at a young age, quit, started again, quit again, and so on. One month earlier, he was diagnosed with heart problems.\u00a0 In the emergency room, the doctor gave … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28640,"featured_media":10905,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-success-stories","odd"],"acf":[],"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/955\/2019\/12\/Tommy-Hawkins-scaled.jpg","featured_image_medium":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/955\/2019\/12\/Tommy-Hawkins-225x300.jpg","featured_image_medium_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/955\/2019\/12\/Tommy-Hawkins-768x1024.jpg","featured_image_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/955\/2019\/12\/Tommy-Hawkins-768x1024.jpg","featured_image_thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/955\/2019\/12\/Tommy-Hawkins-150x150.jpg","featured_image_alt":"","category_details":[{"name":"Success Stories","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/category\/success-stories\/"}],"tag_details":[],"_links_to":[],"_links_to_target":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28640"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/fammed\/tobacco-treatment-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}