Public Organization “Let’s Quit Smoking Together”

How it all started

“Let’s Quit Smoking Together” is a public initiative founded in 2012, immediately after the release of the book of the same name by Alexei Koval, which describes his method of dealing with nicotine addiction for “difficult cases” – people who have lost their last hope.

The main goal of the organization is the prevention of teenage smoking, alcoholism and drug addiction both among adults and children, as well as helping those who want to get rid of addiction. It is also aimed at promoting a healthy lifestyle and strengthening the legislative initiative and state supervision of compliance with legislation in the field of combating smoking.

As a public initiative, we actively promote a healthy lifestyle and help people of all ages struggling with tobacco, alcohol and drug addiction. We have held thousands of actions, dozens of round tables and several tours around Ukraine to promote a healthy lifestyle and avoid nicotine, alcohol and drugs. Reports on these events can be found on our website www.quitsmokingtogether.org.

Over the years, we have received more than a thousand letters of thanks. In 2017, a public organization was registered to promote legislative changes in the Ukrainian field of tobacco control and conduct international activities.

In 2012, Aleksey Koval, author of the book Let’s Quit Smoking Together, published his first developments on getting rid of nicotine addiction.

The author has been working on the book for over three years. The first chapters have been published and posted online. Communicating with readers and answering questions from people who want to quit smoking, the author has constantly improved the book, turning it into a universal guide for all types of addictions. In 2012, the first printed edition of Quit Smoking Together was published.

Soon, a social movement arose around him under the leadership of Oleksiy Koval, which by that time had united more than 300 people in all regions of Ukraine.

Совет движения принял решение о проведении еженедельных акций на средства автора и волонтеров по борьбе с курением, алкоголем и наркоманией. Они раздали книги Алексея Коваля «Бросим курить вместе», диски с электронной книгой, брошюры и листовки с адресом сайта инициативы и ссылкой на бесплатное скачивание книги.

Тематические круглые столы прошли в крупных городах Украины. В более чем 40 городах прошли туры, чтобы привлечь внимание к проблеме, сделать пропаганду здорового образа жизни максимально эффективной и помочь украинцам бороться с прибавлениями. За несколько лет работы инициативы к нам присоединились тысячи людей из разных стран.

In 2014, Aleksey Koval’s Facebook profile was added as a friend 5,000 times, and the Quit Smoking Together VK group had more than 64,000 members. Our simple activities with air puppets made from cigarettes, bottles and syringes have always attracted people’s attention. The text in our brochures and handouts encouraged people to think about quitting smoking and drinking about 10-15% of the time.

By promoting healthy lifestyles and giving away thousands of free online versions of Quit Smoking Together, we not only brought awareness to the problem, but also helped people quit smoking. People kept writing to us asking for help and thanking us for our work and book. He not only helped thousands of people from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and other countries to quit smoking, but many of them managed to overcome alcohol and drug addiction.

The author’s unique method of preparing people for immediate quitting accompanies their first few weeks and helps them understand the value of freedom, health and life that they can gain by getting rid of addictions.

Alexey Koval’s book is popular in Ukraine and CIS countries. The author is selfless and wants to help everyone – the book can be downloaded for free on many sites. There are now over 1,000,000 electronic copies circulating around the world. Paper copies can be found in both public and private libraries in Ukraine.

Today

An app for Android and iOS is currently being developed to make the book even more accessible. It will be available for free on Google Play and the App Store in three languages — English, Russian and Ukrainian. The book is also being translated into 15 additional languages, and subject to funding, these translations will be ready by 2020. The author must also finish his second book. We are talking about fighting another global problem – children’s smoking and alcoholism.

In August 2017, the participants of the initiative held a meeting and decided to register Quit Smoking Together as an international public organization. In September 2017, they did it, and now Let’s Quit Smoking Together is officially registered with the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. Currently, there are representatives of the public organization in 8 regions of Ukraine, and tens of thousands of its members live in five different countries.

Future

The 2017 meeting set the following objectives for 2018-2020:

– force the government to tighten measures against passive smoking

– allocate obligatory hours in schools for detailed coverage of the problems of smoking, alcoholism and drug addiction; prepare teenagers for the first offer to smoke, drink alcohol or take drugs. The teenager should be ready for this and know why the only possible answer is “no”.

– insist on a ban on smoking hookah in public places, as this openly promotes passive smoking

– promotion of healthy lifestyles and proper information to consumers about the dangers of active and passive smoking and other forms of tobacco use

– protect the rights of non-smokers from exposure to tobacco smoke

– assistance to those who want to quit smoking in smoking cessation centers, online help through the website, the opportunity to participate in seminars or consultations, communication with a psychologist by phone

– assist in activities aimed at combating illicit trafficking in tobacco products by assisting legislators and conducting anti-tobacco campaigns

– conduct campaigns, including with the involvement of the media, aimed at reducing the consumption of tobacco products; promotion of healthy lifestyles among parents, pregnant women, adolescents, health and education workers, social workers and other institutions; include those who want to quit smoking in assistance programs

– to introduce effective national anti-tobacco legislation in Ukraine, to denormalize smoking, to popularize life without tobacco.