Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities, a public affairs special focusing on the biggest issues impacting you. This week, here's Ryan Gorman. Thanks so much for joining us here on iHeartRadio Communities. I'm Ryan Gorman, and we have a few very important conversations lined up for you. In just a bit, we'll check in with an organization working to help those dealing with domestic violence and sexual assault. Pamela Zabala, CEO of No More, will discuss those issues and share some
really vital information, so make sure to stick around for that. But first kick things off. Joining me now, I have doctor Christy Marrinac, health Science Advisor in the CDC Office on Smoking and Health, and angp who is featured in the CDC's Tips from Former Smokers campaign. I want to thank you both so much for taking a few minutes to come on the show. And
doctor Marinac, let me start with you. Can you give us a sense as to how much progress we've made in this country in recent decades in reducing the amount of people who are small cigarettes. Yeah, in nineteen sixty five, when we first started to record the number of people who smoked, about
nearly one in two American adults smoked. We have been able to reduce that to about one in nine, So that's still twenty eight million American adults who smoke cigarettes and even more who use other combusted tobacco products that are people like cigars and hookah. So we have a lot of work to do. And as we've seen declined in the number of all people who smoke, we've actually
seen an increase of the proportion of people who smoke mental cigarettes. And mental cigarettes disproportionately harm certain groups, including African American people, LGBTQI plus individuals and women. So the Tips from Former Smokers campaign reaches people who smoke with real stories from people who smoked, and and there's the powerful message that you can quit too. So you mentioned how mental cigarettes in particular disproportionately impact certain groups.
Can you elaborate on that. For Mentol is an ingredient that the tobacco industry adds to cigarettes that has both numbing and cooling properties and a minty taste and aroma, and it allows for cigarette smoke to be inhaled more easily and more deeply into the lungs. It helps it be easier to start smoking and harder to quit smoking, and the tobacco industry has specifically marketed mental cigarettes to
specific groups. For example, African American people are often features and featured in ads for mental cigarettes, and about eighty five percent of Black people who smoke use mental cigarettes. So including people who are included in our campaign who smoked mental cigarettes, and we want to reach everybody who smokes, including people who smoke mental cigarettes, to let them know that quitting is difficult, but it is possible and help is available. What are some of the most common medical
conditions that are associated with smoking? Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body. It causes thirteen different types of cancers, and is a leading preventable cause of death and disease in this country. But quitting smoking is beneficial at any age. You begin to experience the benefits of quitting smoking almost immediately, and even at older ages you can improve yourself by quitting smoking. It is never too late. The earlier you quit, the better, But any age is
a good age to quit smoking. The mental cigarettes that you were mentioning a moment ago, have they had any impact on people's ability to quit smoking. Mentol does make it more difficult to quit smoking, but it's still possible, and people like Angie who smoked mental cigarettes have been able to quit successfully, often using evidence based methods that we know can double or triple your chances of
quitting successfully, including counseling and SDA approved medications for quitting smoking. I'm Ryan Gorman here on iHeartRadio Communities, joined by doctor Christy marinech health Science Advisor in the CDC Office on Smoking and Health, and Angip, who's featured in the CDC's Tips from Former Smokers campaign. Angie, let me bring you in now, when did you first start smoking? And then fast forward for us to
when you decided it was time to quit. I've spoken At the age of thirteen, both my parents smoked, and my mother threw her cigarettes in the garbage because she was done, and then I came behind her and picked them up and started smoking. Wow. I quit smoking and Thanksgiving weekend two thousand, so I smoked from the age of thirteen up until two thousand and two
thousand. I was at a restaurant and a guy was talking about a program that he was quitting smoking, and I listened to him, and the restaurant was crowded, so I knew that it was for my ears only because everything he was saying made sense to me. And I called and got a doctor and a counselor and they did the biocycle social and I haven't smoked since. What was it that led you to first start smoking? Was it just that your mom had smoked, so you picked up the habit too. Was there
something else that led you to continue to smoke once you started? For sure? I mean as far as I was concerned, all the cool people smoked, So yeah, I wanted to be cool and I wanted to be in with the cool people, and yeah, and so that's why I continued. It's like, once I was addicted, there was no stopping. And you smoked menthol cigarettes, right, yes, sir? So what was it about
Menthol cigarettes that drew you to that type of cigarette specifically? Well, it was the one that's what my parents smoked, and so yeah, I knew, like when I grabbed her cigarette that day that you know, the nicotine was what the mentall was what I got addicted to. And it was because it was not that hard going in, you know what I mean, it was it was minty, it was you know, Yeah, when you decided to finally quit smoking, How difficult of a process was that for you?
It was very difficult. The withdrawal from nicotine are horrendous. You know. I had like cold hills, I sweat, you know, I couldn't get the smell of cigarettes off of me. It was it was hard. And after all those years of smoking and being around smoking because your mother smoked too,
How concerned were you about your health at that point. I wasn't as concerned about my health as I was about my singing voice, because I've been singing since I was three, and so I sang in rhythm and blues bands and gospel choirs and even had a sin in Vegas, and that's more.
I was more concerned about that than anything, like I wanted to be able to continue to sing, but by the time I stopped, you know, and it caused problems for me. I'm Ryan Gorman here on iHeartRadio Communities, joined by doctor Christy Marinach, health science advisor in the CDC Office on Smoking and Health, and angp who's featured in the CDC's Tips from Former Smokers campaigns. So when you finally quit, what was it that led you to that point where you said, you know what, I'm done. Now. I'm
sure you have had your struggles along the way. This is not an easy habit to kick. We all know that. But what was it that got you over that hump to where you could quit smoking? It was probably about maybe three months six months that I really really believed that it was possible for me to stop, and that when I went past or saw signs or whatever, I didn't automatically I wasn't attracted to them the way that I was prior
to getting help. Were there certain parts of your day, certain aspects of your life where it was a little more difficult to not reach for that cigarette as you were going through the process of finally quitting, well, I had to replace a lot of things like I would get up, smoke, make coffee and smoke a cigarette. And so what I started doing was not making
the coffee and walking my dog. I started to do some work on me spiritually, and I started sending spiritual retreats and real you know, realize like in my work as far as my spiritual worker was concerned, that this was not something that I had to do and if I saw I can possibly help
so many other people telling them how I did it. Did you feel some significant help benefits once you had stopped smoking, once you reached that, like you said, three to six month range, I'll tell you what what happened was. I began to I began to taste food again. I didn't realize how much food I was not tasting while I was smoking. I like burned all that off, and when I began to taste food again, it was it was pretty cool, Like, Okay, this what it tastes like for
real. I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by doctor Christy Marinack, health Science Advisor the CDC Office on Smoking and Health, and a GP who's featured in the CDC's Tips from Former Smokers campaign, Doctor Marynach. Let me go back to you for a moment. Can you tell us a little bit more about some of these different strategies that help people quit smoking. Sure, so we at
the historm Former Smoker's campaign. It promotes the use of the free quit line in every state one eight hundred Quit Now, and if you call that line, you'll be connected to a trained counselor who will talk to you without judgment and assess your needs and help you come up with a plan. As well as a quit date. You can also talk to your doctor about whether medications that are approved by the FDA for quitting smoking that might be right for you.
We know that when people combine both the counseling that you can get from the one eight hundred Quit Now a line with FDA approved sensation medications, they can double or triple their chances of quitting successfully. You know. Auntie also talked about how when you take away smoking from your life, you can replace it with positive things. It's not just about losing something that gave structure to your life. You can add in things that add structure to your life.
So Antie was going for walks with her dog in the morning and replace replace that healthy behavior so that she didn't need that morning cigarette anymore. But we really do encourage you, if you would like free, trained, non judgmental help, to call one eight hundred quid now. One thing we've seen in recent years, as the number of people in this country smoking cigarettes has decreased, the number who are now vaping has increased substantially. Can you talk a
little bit about that. Yes, these cigarettes are now the most commonly used tobacco product among middle and high school students, as well as young adults ages eighteen to twenty five, and many of the adults who now use e cigarettes never smoked cigarettes. We know that there's no such thing as a stafe tobacco product, and etherrets contain nicotine as well as flavors that can make them particularly
appealing to young people. The aerosol that you inhale and an e cgret not only contains nicotine, but also can contain other things that can be harmful, including heavy metals and chemicals that can cause cancer. So there's no safe tobacco product, and we encourage people to never start using tobacco products and if you
use them, to quit. Angie, let me go back to you for one final question based on your experience having quit smoking, any tips for those who are out there who are thinking about quitting or want to quit but haven't been able to up to this point. Sure, you know, I felt very judged, especially after my parents quit and then I continued smoking, so I was very I was afraid of being judged and that's the one thing that
kept me from doing anything. And when I went and got help, they just showed me ways that I could I could help myself, Like, we're not going to do it all you know, you have to do some things as well, and so I just already doing different stuff. When I smoked cigarettes, my skin was so so much darker than it is now. It just affected everything. Doctor Christy Merrinac, health Science advisor in the CDC Office on Smoking and Health, and angp who's featured in the CDC's Tips from Former
Smokers campaign. Doctor Merrinac, Angie, thank you both so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having us. Thank you. All right, I'm Ryan Gorman here on iHeartRadio Communities, and now let me bring in my next guest. I'm joined now by the CEO of No More, Pamela Zabala. You can learn more about the work this organization does at no More dot org. That's no More dot org. Pamela, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to come on the show.
And let's start with an overview of the work your organization does and how this organization first came about. Hi, thank you for having me. No More started in twenty thirteen, and it started as a unifying symbol pretty much like breast cancer with the pink ribbons in order ready doing free visability to the issues
of domestic violence and sexual assaults. And after that ten years after we've grown and become the largest and most successful domestic violence and sexual assault prevention initiative. We have a network of around fourteen hundred allied organization and more than thirty state, local, and international campaigns or chapters as we call them. So what
do you attribute that tremendous growth to? Is there something in particular the issue that you know, domestic and sexual violence it affects one in three women globally and one in six men, for example, So we know that in a lifetime people would have gone through this kind of abuse in such huge numbers that
you know it's it's in a pandemic proportion. So once you kind of start, you know, opening that ability of people to speak up and tell their stories, there are many people, well they're very similar story who start sharing and you know, all of a sudden, this kind of activism growth and growth. You have a statistic on your website that really stood out to me. I thought it was eye opening. Sixty four percent of those who were
victims of domestic violence or sexual assault said no one helped them. Can you speak to why you think so many people who have gone through something as horrific again as domestic violence or sexual assault, didn't have anybody who was there to help them in their time of need. Of course, there's a lot of stigma around domestic violence, so of course it's really hard for people to just like tell the truth of what's happening, just in the first stance, to
admit it to themselves and then actually to reach out. And once they do, the problem is because it's such something that is kept secret people, many people will not know what to do with this information. They don't know how to help. Many people advise you to stay with your partners to try to work things out, so it becomes kind of quite difficult. And also in
terms of getting support. Finding help is in terms of NGOs. There's fantastic work out there, but if you have to leave your house because you're scared, grabs your children, all your belongings, and where do you go, that kind of help is difficult. So it's it's a challenge for people to decide to leave relationships, and many of them endure, so it is difficult. I think Ryan, as we speak more about this, more people are figuring out what to do, how to help, where to refair, and
that is you know that start warming. I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by Pamela Zabala, CEO of No More. You can learn more about the work this organization does at no More dot org. I want to break things down to the basics here for a second. Can can you step us through the definition
what exactly constitutes domestic violence? Yes, domestic violence is the exertion of power and control from one partners to another, So it is, and that comes in all kinds of ranges that can be done by emotional abuse, financial abuse, psychological tactics, but it all comes down to that exertion of control of one person or another. And you know, in this case we talk a lot about intimate partner violence, but this can also occur in other types of
family content. And then what about sexual assault. Sexual assault is pretty much any type of sexual advance that has no consen to it. And remember when we talk of content, we talked about enthusiastic consent. So if somebody is doing something of a sexual nature that is not appropriate or without your permission,
then you know, you know, that is sexual violence. Going from coming to the realization that you're a victim of domestic violence, or that you're a victim of sexual assault and getting to the point where you're ready to reach out and seek help. How difficult of a leap is that for victims to make? It got me a big leap one, because you have to if people don't go into relationships try and thinking that they will be abused or that they
will end them in such a way. Right, So the first kind of big barrier that survivors have is for themselves right to admit that, you know, there is an issue that is affecting them so much that they have to make a decision of believing or saying. Many people decide to say and endure. Once people decide to look for help, we have they're fantastic. As I said, three sources available the National Domestic Violence Helpline. If you ring
them, they will hear your story. Risks you know as Fesster level of danger because in many situations this can be life threatening. So it's important I advise anybody hearing us. If you're in doubt about your relationship, call a local provider called the National Domestic Linance Helpline. They're also amazing apps like one called right Side where you can put your postcode Ryan, and you will immediately see all the services around you. Getting professional help is important and it's usually
the majority of case is free of cost. So it's important to figure out how you're doing for those who might suspect someone in their life, perhaps it's a family member or friends that they're experiencing domestic violence, or they've experienced a sexual assault. What is it that you would recommend they do to help those in that difficult time. The first thing is to listen. When somebody comes to you and then they tell you that they are suffering domestic violence, you
might be the first person they're disclosing to. So believing somebody and not just trying to undermine what they're saying or trying to minimize that. It's really important. Just remember you might be that very first person, so listening is important. Then responding with empathy you know that you're understanding the situation, and then
help them to find resources and referring them to professional support. What about taking the step of intervening trying to help someone dealing with domestic violence or sexual assaults
in that way? I you know, we always kind of caution, you know, on the side of safety with this question, Ryan, because I believe domestic violence is one of the leading pasts of police debts when they go into situations like this, So it is very important to make sure that you're fight and that you're actually your intervention is not going to make that person less
safe. So, you know, if if this is a situation where you believe there's somebody in the middle of a physical assault or the best way to proceed is to get help in this case by calling nine one one. Some other resources that you have on the website that I think are important to step
through, tips for healthy dating, and also an explainer on consent. Can you dive into that for a moment, Yes, you know, when we we you know, as if we talk about domestic violence and sex of violence, we we like to talk about healthy relationships, what does that look like and model those and the world at the moment is ever changing. You know, we're changing the way that we date, the way that we kind of
start relationships is you know, not like thirty years ago. So it's very important to you know, give up get out their messaging that it's kind of confident that how to start a relationship, how to go about dating if you're doing it in real life if you are you know, online dating. But yeah, most importantly is how to keep safe. I'm Ryan Gorman with Pamela Zabala, CEO of No More, an organization working to help those dealing with
domestic violence and sexual assault. You can learn more at No More dot org. So Pamela tell us about No More Week twenty twenty four. Yes, we're very excited. Every year we do this kind of activism weeks called No More Week, and yes, this this year is from the third to the ninth as you kind of you know, highlight it and really where it's a way to come together and make sure that we are raising our voice against this.
We know there's no simple solutions to it, so we're doing a in terms of the events, we're doing a virtual five K that's supported by the NFL, where participants are welcome to you know, engage in this in any way way they can. They can walk round you know, bikes and whatever, pickable, whatever they want to really you know, elevate the voice. And we are also doing a text conference where we are talking I think we have fourteen sessions around technology and abuse, so very welcome to you know,
please go to No More dot org. And you'll be able to see No More Week and you'll be able to see what we're doing there. And how has participation in this event No More Week, or other initiatives that you've put forward, How has that participation grown in recent years as your organization has grown.
There is a kind of a snowball effect, right. The more we pick up, the more other people decide to go out tell your story with organizations like the work that we did No More at the beginning and just putting
people voices and other movements like Me Too. So there is much much more attention now than ever before on the topic, and you know that is very grateful saying that though the problem is the more people speak up, the more others are reporting, for example, and so we know how endemic the situation is. So whilst there is you know, more voices, there's still not
enough to tackle such an issue. You mentioned the Me Too movement and your organization No More started before that, and then obviously you've continued to work through that. How big of a game changer was that moment? It was?
It was, but it was a great It was a complete game changer, and partially it's for you know, the reason that I've you know, I've been talking around it is this acknowledgement that this situation that people keep quiet about happened and it up to a lot of people and it's not only me. And also that your story is very similar to mine. And it doesn't matter if I'm in the States or I am in you know, Germany, or I am in Argentina. The patterns in which domestic violence is exerted and sexual
assault are very similar. So I think that's what we gained in that moment in time, was this understanding that the issue was not only a family issue, but it was actually a global problem. One of the most powerful parts of your website and everyone can go to no More dot org to check this out. The stories that you highlight people who have dealt with domestic violence and sexual assault. Tell us about that. Yes, you can go to our
website. It's some more dot org our stories and people come in and share
their story. And the fantastic thing of that platform, ran is that people share their story, but there's a back team of volunteers that you know, we'll also interact with a person sharing their story in case they need something, they need information, they need further support, and it's not only the stories that you see, but it's also you can kind of tag in and if you experience, like, let's say, physical abuse, you can put physical
abuse and all the stories regarding that will come up for you. So in that way it you know, it's quite interactive and safer, for example, than other kind of ways of you know, sharing stories. At the moment, I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by the CEO of No More, Pamela Zabala. This is an organization working to help those dealing with domestic violence and sexual assaults. You can learn more at no More dot org. Again, that's no More dot org. How can people who are listening right now take action
and become part of the work that you're doing. One of the one of the ways is to inform themselves to learn about domestic violence in any shape, way or form. You know. One of the bits that we did with iHeart was supporting I podcast about the Girlfriend, which was an incredible story of
a group of women who all dated an abusive boyfriend. And the reason that I am bringing that up is because it might just be even listening to a podcast, you know, to a story about that just enhances your ability to understand the issues, So that's one important thing. And once you understand,
raise your voice. Right. We use moments like no more weeks coming up to just say that you stand against this, that you believe, that you know this is an issue that affects many, and that you are you know ready to you know, say that there are no more excuses to condone this
kind of behavior. And finally, those who are listening right now who might be dealing with domestic violence or might have experienced sexctual assault, what would you recommend they do, whether it's going to Know More dot org, the resources you have available there, or anything else to help with the situation they find themselves in. If you go to our website, you'll be able to see a site that we have all no More Directory dot org, and that is
basically a database of organizations throughout the world. We cover over two hundred countries that I believe we need two or none of the lists at the moment for several reasons. But when you do there, you go there, you choose your country and you can see all the resources that are available there for domestic violence and sexual assaults. You know, if you're hearing us in the States, you can also call the National Domestic Violence Helpline and they'll be able to
provide support. But in terms of our website, you'll be able to find dedicated resources and work to go through through that site, Pamela, Chief executive officer for No More Again. You can learn more about all the tremendous work they do and support that work at no More dot org. That's no More dot Org. Pamela. I want to thank you so much for taking a few minutes to come on the show, and of course for all the great work you and your organization are doing on this issue. Thank you so much.
All right, and that's going to do it for this edition of Ihearidio Communities. As we wrap things up, I want to offer a big thanks to all of our guests and of course to all of you for listening. If you want to hear previous episodes of this show, we're on your iharidio app. Just search for Iharidio Communities. I'm your host, Ryan Gorman. We'll talk to you again real soon.