WATERLOO - After five years of being smoke-free Dean Lange still finds himself reaching for his shirt pocket in certain situations.

The 50-year-old "recovering smokeaholic" picked up the habit in high school and, at one point, smoked about three packs a day as an over-the-road truck driver. He said he most longs for a drag after a good steak or during a late-evening cruise on a pontoon boat.

"Tobacco is truly an evil weed when it comes to addiction," Lange wrote in an e-mail to the Courier.

Lange credits his children and his employer - he works for an area school district - with convincing him to take on the addiction.

"When sneaking around to ‘burn one,' sometimes the kids would see or smell me, giving me the feeling that somehow I was telling them smoking was OK," Lange wrote.

It took nicotine patches, prescriptions drugs and lots of hard candy, but Lange finally quit in March 2004. According to the American Cancer Society, most of those who quit do so with the help of patches, prescriptions and external support. Only about 4 to 7 percent of those who attempt to quit without medicines or other help actually succeed. The ACS also said that between 25 and 33 percent of smokers who use medicines stay smoke-free for more than six months.

For more than 30 years the American Cancer Society has challenged smokers to make the third Thursday of November (tomorrow) their last day smoking. Those who can't quit are challenged to at least decrease the number of cigarettes they smoke in a day.

Jake Blitsch of Oelwein was one of the first smokers to credit his quitter status to the smokeout. After his father died a "slow, miserable, painful" death from lung cancer in February 1979, Blitsch often thought about ditching the habit. But at the time, even his father's death was not enough.

In November of the same year Blitsch heard the first rumblings about the upcoming Great American Smokeout. He contemplated accepting the challenge, but quickly dismissed the thought - until the day before.

"How hard could it be to quit for one day?" he said.

That night, he stayed up late, enjoying Johnny Carson and a pack of Marlboros. He woke up the next morning ready to face the day smoke-free.

"I went to work, and by 8 a.m. I had successfully stopped smoking for a record two hours. By 10 a.m., things got a little dicey and nerve racking," he wrote. By noon, he was ready to call it quits on quitting.

"I rationalized I had given it a valiant effort and headed to the gas station to buy some smokes," he said. On the way to the counter he passed by a package of lemon drops and decided to give the challenge one last-ditch effort. By the end of the day his tongue was raw, but he refused to give up.

"The next morning, I woke up with a new sense of challenge and the determination to make it yet one more day," he wrote. "I'm not sure how many ‘day-to-days' have passed in these 30 years, but I know thanks to the American Cancer Society, the Great American Smokeout program and my family's patience with me, I am forever tobacco-free and much healthier for it."