ORANGE’S Lyndon Community withdrawal unit will be the only addiction treatment centre in Western NSW to help clients quit smoking at the same time as they kick their other vices.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Clients being treated for drug and alcohol addiction will be offered nicotine patches and additional support with their cigarette withdrawal, in a effort to encourage good health in general.
Lyndon addiction specialist Doctor Rod MacQueen said: “There’s no point stopping their heroin use if they’re just going to die of a heart attack from smoking.”
Dr MacQueen said he wants clients to realise that “smoking is not what most people do” .
Despite the fact that 90 per cent of the unit’s clients are smokers, only 18 per cent of the general population smoke.
“We want to be a health promotion unit,” he said.
“It’s crazy for us to talk about health yet go out and buy cigarettes for people.”
Lyndon program manager Scott Kable said many of the clients at the unit are motivated to stop drinking and taking drugs so this level of motivation can also help them stop smoking.
“While they’re here in treatment they’re getting supported more than if they were at home,” he said.
“Most of our clients are poly drug users so they’re used to giving up more than one drug at a time.”
Dr MacQueen said the fact that 20 per cent of the unit’s clients are Aboriginal people, and the biggest contributor to excess mortality in Aboriginal people was smoking, the onus was on the unit to address this situation.
