Tobacco and Your Health

Many Veterans used tobacco while they served, particularly during deployment. Now seven out of every 10 Veterans who smoke would like to quit — for both the physical benefits and their mental health.

A majority of them are successful. In fact, over 70% of Veterans who have ever smoked have successfully quit.

If you’re one of those Veterans, or if the Veteran in your life is trying to quit, you’ve come to the right place. VA offers resources for making a quit plan and sticking to it, including:

• Medicine and counseling. Veterans can talk with their health care provider to get information about combining medicine and individualized or group counseling. 

• Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). NRT can help in managing withdrawal symptoms. NRT is available over the counter as a patch, gum, or lozenge.

• Quit VET (1-855-QUIT-VET). The VA quitline connects Veterans to a trained counselor who can help them develop a quit plan and provide ongoing counseling and support to prevent relapse.

• SmokefreeVET. By texting VET to 47848, Veterans can sign up for VA’s text-messaging support program, which offers 24/7 encouragement, advice, and tips to help tobacco users quit.

• VA’s Tobacco and Health website. Veterans can visit VA’s Tobacco and Health website to learn about the various components to quitting, including the benefits of quitting, ways to quit, where to go for help, and the health risks of smoking specific to certain groups.

Learn more about these different resources to help you quit smoking.