Melanie Birge smokes what she hopes will be one of her last cigarettes. After 32 years of smoking, Birge hopes to quit smoking during the Great American Smokeout this week.

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of stories about Melanie Birge’s battle with nicotine addiction.

Ten-year-old Katie Pina wants her mom to stop smoking.

“I want her to quit because I want her to be around for a long time,” the little brown-haired, brown-eyed girl said while sitting on the living room couch next to her mom. “I want her to be around to see my babies because I’ve never really gotten to have a grandmother, so I want my kids to have the opportunity that I didn’t get to have.”

Teary-eyed Melanie Birge, 42, of Lawrence, knows her nicotine addiction has affected her family, and that’s one of the reasons she plans to participate in the American Cancer’s Society Great American Smokeout on Thursday.

“I have three kids still at home. They are concerned about me dying early because they hear it from the schools, ‘Don’t do drugs, don’t smoke.’ They are always upset when I do go out and smoke,” she said.

Birge began smoking when she was Katie’s age and was a habitual smoker by 13, giving in to peer pressure from her older cousins and siblings who smoked.

“It was just cool in the ’70s to smoke, and I wanted to fit in. Everyone I knew, including my parents, smoked,” she said.

Today, she is disgusted by it.

“I feel very ashamed to be a smoker,” she said. “I don’t like to smell it and I don’t like to smell like I smell it, so I try to smoke outside when the wind is blowing the opposite direction.”

Birge said she smokes about a pack of cigarettes per day. She said it gives her a reason to take a break or get away from the task at hand.

“It’s a diversion,” she said.

About one and a half years ago, she was able to quit for the first time using Chantix, but it only lasted three months. She said she thought, “Just one will be OK. I will just smoke one and that’s all.”

But that cigarette led to two, which led to three and before she knew it, she was back to smoking.

“They (her children) really did praise me the last time I stopped smoking,” she said. “They were very happy and then they were very hurt when I started back up and that made me feel bad.”

Birge is determined to quit, especially with her first grandchild due next month.

“My family is growing, and I am excited about that,” she said. “I really want to be around for my kids and their children. I am pretty much all they have.”

Birge plans to have her last cigarette on Wednesday night before she goes to bed. She won’t be using medication this time. Instead, she plans to use her own willpower and the encouragement of her children.

As she hugged Katie, she said, “I want to be here for them when they graduate and watch them succeed at all of the wonderful things they want to do.”

Tips to be successful

While Birge plans to quit “cold turkey,” a smoking cessation expert advised otherwise.

Aynsley Anderson, community education coordinator at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, said there are two keys to success: making a plan and finding something else to help manage stress — like exercise, meditation, reading or taking up a new hobby.

She suggested using Thursday to set a plan and a date to quit, if smokers haven’t already done so.

“You can’t just say, ‘I am going to get up and quit today’ without putting a little thought into it,” she said.

She also encourages people to start a smoking diary to see what behavior is linked to smoking. Anderson said a majority of smokers light up at the same time and during the same activities.

If people smoke more than a half a pack a day, she recommends tapering it down to at least that amount before quitting.

“That way when they do quit, the physical rebound and withdrawal from nicotine is much less than if they were smoking more than a pack a day,” she said.

Once the day is set, Anderson provided the following tips:

• Get rid of everything associated with smoking such as ashtrays, and clean the house to get rid of any smell. Also, replace things like your toothbrush and Chapstick.

• Quit in the evening. It usually takes 36 hours to get the majority of nicotine out of your system. Hopefully, you can sleep through most of those hours.

• Drink plenty of fluids, especially drinks containing Vitamin C. She said the nicotine binds with the Vitamin C and that helps flush the nicotine faster.

• Stay away from smokers.

• When cravings hit, do the four Ds — drink water, take deep breaths, distract yourself and do something else.

Anderson said it often takes people five or six tries before reaching success.

“It’s probably the most difficult thing that they will ever do. So, they need ongoing encouragement,” she said. “They have cravings for years after. They can quit for five or 10 years and then just out of the blue have a day where they are just desperate to smoke or walk by a place where there is the odor of cigarettes. It’s so tied up with the addiction in the brain. It’s kind of a lifelong battle for a lot of people.”