Smoking Cessation Expert Meryl Wexler has launched a new online video training program “Goodbye Tobacco™” designed for smokers who want to stop tobacco use and employers who want to reduce costs of preventable disease.
Wexler is the President of Wellness Resolutions, LLC which provides Workplace Wellness education, program guidance/implementation, health treatment and prevention services to employers. She has presented live group smoking cessation programs for more than a decade.
Wexler created “Goodbye Tobacco™” an eight-part online video program, to reach more individuals with her proven smoking cessation program and to help employers recoup unnecessary health expenditure.
Every year, nearly 500-thousand people die from smoking-related illnesses. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Additionally, about 70% of the health claims in the U.S. can be linked to lifestyle behavior. According to the Centers for Disease Control, between 2000 and 2004, the direct medical cost associated with tobacco use in the U.S. totaled approximately $96 billion per year, and there were an additional $97 billion in lost productivity costs.
Wexler says the impact on the economy could be significant if the preventable health care costs of tobacco use were reduced through smoking cessation because people who live healthier lifestyles won’t need as much health care. The Affordable Care Act provides employers with new opportunities and incentives to support healthier workplaces and employer-sponsored health insurance plans are becoming more aggressive in covering tobacco cessation treatment.
During the eight video sessions, Wexler walks smokers through a five-stage change process to become tobacco-free, helps participants drill down to understand their own personal tobacco dependency, details the health risks smokers face, explores different quitting methods and tobacco cessation aids, shows smokers how to prepare for their quit date, teaches behavior modification techniques and discusses coping tools to stop tobacco use and avoid relapse.
Wexler’s approach is to motivate, not scold smokers to stop using tobacco. As she tells program participants, “Gathering the right tools is the key to empowering you to reach any goal you have in life so, by achieving this goal, you’ll realize that you can accomplish just about anything. You have the control, but you just might not realize that yet.”
The “Goodbye Tobacco™” smoking cessation program has been praised by both employers and participants. One participant credits Wexler with helping her break a four decade smoking habit and says, “I know now that I will NEVER go back.”
For more information about Meryl Wexler, please visit her website: http://www.WellnessResolutionsLLC.com. To learn more about the “Goodbye Tobacco™” program, visit: http://WellnessResolutionsLLC.com/smoking-cessation/.