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Ex-smoker Quits With Own Device
Dying for a cigarette?  So was Laurie Southworth for about ten years, until she decided to quit.  Quoting Mark Twain she said, "To stop smoking was the easiest thing I ever did.  I ought to know because I've done it a thousand times."

She tried the cold turkey method and self-help books, but nothing worked.  Finally Southworth tried something different.  She cut off a McDonald's straw to about the size of a cigarette and carried it around with her everywhere she went.

She hasn't had a cigarette since.  Instead of reaching for a smoke, she picked up her straw, twirled it between her fingers, put it in her mouth, and inhaled deeply.  "I'd carry it around with me all day and people would say, 'What in the world are you doing with that straw in your mouth?' but that's what helped me kick the habit."

Southworth now markets a cigarette substitute that she invented called Better Quit®, that uses the air flow idea of the straw, but looks and feels like a real cigarette.

Growing up in Westport, Connecticut, Southworth started smoking when she was fourteen.  By the time she was a junior in college, she was huffing and puffing her way up three flights of stairs to get to classes.

"I really felt victimized by the habit," she said.  "I was winded.  I could feel the effects of smoking in my twenties and thought, 'This is ridiculous.' I felt that smoking was controlling me, and I didn't like that."  She also knew she wanted to have children one day and didn't want to set a bad example for them.

She quit cold turkey in 1973, while working at Connecticut's Noroton School for children with learning difficulties.  On one particularly tough day, though, she recalls telling herself, "I'll just have one more cigarette."

She learned two things that day:  there's no such thing as "just one more," and for her to quit permanently, she had to have something tangible.  The jitters, cravings and irritability would disappear in a few days.  It was the habit that lingered so long.

"I call it a long-ingrained hand-to-mouth behavior that just doesn't go away when the nicotine addiction subsides,"  says Southworth.  "It's the habit of getting out a cigarette, lighting it, and handling it, and puffing on it that is so hard to break."

The idea of using a straw as a cigarette substitute made perfect sense to Southworth.  She remembered reading a quote in 1973 from a book, Learning To Live Without Cigarettes.  It stated, "Take a deep breath and get your lift from some extra oxygen."  So, years after her non-smoking became permanent, she decided to turn her idea into an invention, the Better Quit® cigarette substitute.

"If we can address all angles of the habit, then I think there will be a greater chance of success to stop smoking permanently," Southworth said.  "I want to arm people with everything they need to quit."