A program designed to aid the smoker in developing self-assurance and confidence in the cessation process. Breathe Free assists participants in becoming knowledgeable and active in the process of behavior change, opening up to them a vision of personal choice, individual responsibility, freedom to act, and power to direct their own lifestyle. It helps them find confidence in their ability to regain control of their lives.
Breathe Free seeks to empower the individual to reach four major objectives: physical preparation, mental conditioning, social support, and spiritual regeneration. The revised Breathe Free plan consists of nine sessions, one and a half to two hours in length, lasting over a period of four weeks. Periodic home visits and phone or written contacts are very helpful. This includes a minimum of three contacts at least three, six, and 12 months after the initial nine sessions.
The materials provided for the Breathe Free plan consist of nine annotated scripts designed for the expert or the novice in conducting a smoking cessation program. The plan also provides a director’s manual giving detailed information on how to plan, promote, and implement the program.
For the participant a number of items are available to enhance the effectiveness of the program: novelty buttons; a personal plan booklet that guides each participant through each session of the program; diplomas to be given at the end of the nine sessions, at six months, and at one year; a number of posters to be coordinated with each of the nine sessions; nine videos, one for each of the nine sessions; many demonstration devices; new pamphlets designed to accompany each of the sessions, particularly in the area of smoking and the topics of exercise, caffeine, alcohol, heart disease, cancer, secondhand smoke, weight control, stress, diet, and a number of other helpful topics.
The church’s first smoking cessation program was designed by Dr. J. Wayne McFarland and Chaplain Elman J. Folkenberg between 1959 and 1961. Called the Five-Day Plan to Stop Smoking, it was one of the first smoking-cessation programs available in the United States. At that time the GC Temperance Department also produced one of the first films on smoking and health— One in 20,000 . During the next 20 to 25 years this plan was successful in helping many thousands of smokers stop smoking. In 1980 Dr. Mervyn Hardinge set up a commission of smoking-cessation experts to study the feasibility of revising the Five-Day Plan.
In 1984 Stoy Proctor, associate director of the Health and Temperance Department, was commissioned to continue research on revising the Five-Day Plan by conducting a thorough literature search as well as a survey of smoking cessation experts throughout North America. This work was completed in 1984 and a revised Five-Day Plan to Stop Smoking was placed on the market in 1985 and was named the Breathe-Free Plan.
In 1988 the Health and Temperance Department commissioned the Center for Health Promotion at Loma Linda University to study the effectiveness of Breathe Free. Their evaluations and research suggested that the length of the Five-Day Plan should be extended, that the after treatment should be lengthened, and that more time should be allowed for discussion. The small group work should be implemented and given a major part of the program with less attention to be given to the lecture format.
In 1993 Breathe Free was again revised to meet these findings, and the newly revised Breathe Free plan was released. Anyone with successful speaking ability or group dynamics expertise can conduct a successful program because of the comprehensive nature of the self-help material provided by Breathe Free: The Plan to Stop Smoking.
Tobacco is now the leading cause of preventable disease, a major contributor to heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic respiratory disease. The surgeon general of the U.S.A. has declared that smoking is an addiction comparable to cocaine addiction. Seventh-day Adventists must continue their efforts to fight this plague.
One of the most successful concepts used by Breathe Free: The Plan to Stop Smoking is found in Fundamentals of Christian Education: “If we wish to do good to souls, our success with these souls will be in proportion to their belief in our belief in, and appreciation of, them. Respect shown to the struggling human soul is the sure means through Christ Jesus of the restoration of the self-respect that man has lost” ( p. 281).
In 1988 and 1989 Dr. Terry Butler, then a researcher at Loma Linda University involved in the evaluation of the Breathe Free plan, went back to his native Australia and adapted many of the Five-Day and Breathe Free concepts for a program used mainly in the South Pacific Division called “I Quit Now!” The Health and Temperance Department encourages every country to use Breathe Free: The Plan to Stop Smoking as appropriate or to adapt it to the culture and language that are needed in that particular area.