Quitting tobacco use is the most important thing you can do for yourself and your family.

If you have made a New Year’s resolution to stop smoking in 2010, free help is available.

The Alabama Department of Public Health offers a free telephone-based, tobacco cessation service that provides free counseling and four weeks of free nicotine patches, if medically eligible and enrolled in counseling.

The Alabama Tobacco Quitline, 1-800-Quit-Now can be reached Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Calls placed after these hours or on weekends or holidays will be returned the next business day.

Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death in the United States.

Each year, more than 7,500 Alabamians die from smoking-related causes.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for every person that dies, 20 people are suffering from at least one serious tobacco-related illness.

Please quit for yourself. Call 1-800-Quit-Now (1-800-784-8669).

– Demetra Peoples, Montgomery