IF YOUR New Year's resolution is to quit smoking, try hitting the Web. A six-week smoking cessation program called Ready, Set, Stop! Online claims a 28 percent success rate. That's 10 percent higher than the average stop-smoking program, according to the

What makes it so successful, says Fern Carness, the Portland, Ore., nurse (and former smoker) who developed the program, is that it can be accessed anonymously 24/7. "Most smokers will tell you they've quit thousands of times, so [the problem] isn't quitting so much as staying quit," she told The Post. "Smoking is a learned habit, a trigger habit and an addiction habit, so to successfully quit, you have to address all three." Breast-cancer survivor Debbie Bunch, of Portland, credits Ready, Set, Stop with helping her quit the habit at last. The program - which has smokers fill in the blanks, MadLibs-style, about their habits, and write Dear John letters to their cigarettes - advocates such "healthy" addictions as reading, meditating, exercising and journal-writing. And it's free. Look for it at www.wellmed.com. Other online resources for smokers who want to quit are www.quitnet.org and www.lungusa.com/tobacco.

<< Prev	CIGoutlet.NET News Home	Next >>