LEWISTON — Those battling the smoking habit will get together tonight at St. Mary’s Potvin Conference Room on Campus Avenue, just like they do every Thursday.

Keith Pray, 42, of Lewiston, is the facilitator.

An ex-smoker, he gets it: Quitting is hard.

“You’re only one cigarette away from being a smoker,” he said. He noted that it’s also hard to die too young or lose a loved one because of cigarettes.

Pray quit after his mother, who was a heavy smoker, died from cancer. He wants to be there for his daughter, he said.

Today is the annual American Cancer Society’s “Great American Smokeout,” an event held since 1976 to encourage smokers to toss tobacco and live healthier.

Maine used to be a state with a lot of smokers. In 1997, 32 percent of adults smoked.

Since then, Maine became a leader in passing laws to snuff out smoking in workplaces, restaurants, bars and parks, even private vehicles carrying children.

Cigarettes used to be visibly displayed in stores. They’re still available for purchase, but they are less visible and locked up.

The American Lung Association gives Maine a grade of A for having smoke-free air, but lower grades for tobacco taxes and funding tobacco cessation programs.

According to the Maine Shared Community Health Needs Assessment, in Androscoggin County, the adult smoking rate in 2013 was 24.4 percent; it was 20.3 percent in Franklin County and 26.8 percent in Oxford County.

Statewide, the adult smoking rate in 2013 was 20.2 percent, not far from the national rate of 19 percent.

While the numbers have come down, too many people still die prematurely or get sick as a result of smoking, said Emily Dooling-Hamilton, a health promoter with Healthy Androscoggin.

“Tobacco remains the largest preventable cause of death and disease in the United States,” she said. “We know that 480,000 Americans die each year from tobacco-related illness.”

That includes not just cancer, heart attacks and strokes, but sicknesses such as type 2 diabetes, she said.

“Smoking affects every single organ in our body,” Dooling-Hamilton said. “There is no safe level of secondhand smoke exposure.”

Quitting often takes several attempts, she said. “It’s a journey.” 

Some benefits of quitting are felt quickly. After 20 minutes of a person’s last cigarette, the heart rate and blood pressure drop to normal.

“Within 24 hours, the chances of a heart attack decreases,” Dooling-Hamilton said. “Two weeks to three months, lung function and circulation improves.”

Between one and nine months, coughing and shortness of breath decrease, according to the American Lung Association. By one year, the risk of heart disease is cut in half. By five years, the risk of some cancers, such as mouth, throat, esophagus and bladder, are cut in half.

Within two to five years, the risk of stroke falls to that of a nonsmoker. By 15 years, the risk of heart disease falls to that of a nonsmoker.

Pray said he started smoking at age 13 at a friend’s home. They challenged each other to smoke cigarettes left lying around by his friend’s mother. Years later, it took several times for him to quit, he said. He quit for good on Jan. 1, 2001.

But he did miss it.

“It was like I lost a friend,” Pray said.

But he quickly had more energy. “After a couple of months, I could do a lot more things.”

He no longer spent a lot of money on cigarettes. “I used to smoke two packs a day.” At $6 or $7 a pack, he estimates he’s saved thousands of dollars since quitting.

He’s been helping others for 14 years, saying he loves the feeling of encouraging others. But people have to be ready to quit, he said.

“We don’t nag,” he said. “We all slip. Never quit quitting.”

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To get personalized support: Call the Maine Tobacco Helpline at 1-800-207-1230.

To find out more about today’s Great American Smokeout: Visit http://tinyurl.com/9uug2vv.

For more on how Maine is doing about helping people live tobacco free: http://tinyurl.com/jzewu46.