Marty Vegh started smoking when he was 18. He had a heart attack at age 40. Fifteen years later, he’s still puffing at a rate of 25 cigarettes a day.

On Tuesday, Vegh took his first steps toward quitting. He was one of about 15 people who attended a smoking cessation clinic at the Evanston Civic Center.

The clinics are conducted by Evanston resident Joel Spitzer, who has been running them in Evanston and Skokie for the last six years. Tuesday’s session was the first since the Evanston City Council voted April 24 to outlaw smoking in bars and restaurants. The ban will go into effect on July 1.

“Most people quit six, seven or eight times,” Spitzer said. “It’s bad enough going through this once, let alone over and over.”

The recent death of ABC News anchor Peter Jennings, who died of lung cancer, showed the dangers of relapsing into smoking, Spitzer said.

Jennings said in April 2005 that he started smoking during the Sept. 11, 2005, terrorist attacks, about 20 years after quitting.

“What does taking a puff do to bring back a tower?” Spitzer said. “The only thing it did was make him a smoker again.”

Spitzer said it is senseless to continue smoking and that it can result in embarrassing situations. He repeatedly referred to the audience as “drug addicts.” Most people got addicted because they wanted to look older or rebel against authorities, or they were succumbing to peer pressure, he said, but the reasons for continuing smoking are different.

“How many in this room smoke because of peer pressure?” Spitzer asked. “How many of you have family members who want you to fail at this?”

He also asked the smokers if they ever lit used cigarette butts or smoked butts that were left in restaurant ashtrays. About a quarter of the audience raised their hands when Spitzer asked them if they ever tried to quit smoking by throwing out their cigarettes, only to retrieve them from the garbage can.

“Think about this,” he said. “It is disgusting.”

A better way to quit cold turkey is to flush the cigarettes down the toilet, he said.

“They get very soggy, very difficult to retrieve and almost impossible to light,” Spitzer said.

The various restrictions against smoking have made it less enjoyable than it was in the past, Spitzer said, noting how few smokers could get through “The Lord of the Rings” movies without running out of the theater during the long film.

“We live in a society that has made smoking a really miserable experience,” he said. “Smoking used to be fun 20 to 30 years ago.”

State grants resulting from a settlement between the tobacco industry and Illinois fund the clinics. In 1998, 11 cigarette manufacturers agreed to pay Illinois $9.1 billion over 25 years as part of the nationwide Master Tobacco Settlement Agreement. Spitzer holds sessions three times a year in Evanston, and the city pays him $3,000 for each six-session program.

At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, Spitzer lit a cigarette, stuck it into an empty dish soap bottle and then pumped smoke out to show how much the lung takes in during smoking.

Chicago resident Iwona Wolska, 23, said she successfully quit cold turkey about a year ago after attending Spitzer’s clinics. She had to readjust herself to activities in which she usually found herself smoking, such as driving and going to clubs.

“It’s good to refresh on what made me quit and to tell others that there is life after quitting,” she said while attending Tuesday’s clinic.

Evanston’s smoking ban did not appear to affect the turnout for Spitzer’s clinics. As many as 30 people usually attend the first session of his clinics, he said.

Vegh said he came to the clinic because he started dating a non-smoking woman who wants him to quit. Spitzer’s presentation prompted him to leave his cigarettes in the Civic Center bathroom before returning home to Northbrook to get rid of the rest of his supply, he said.

“I’m going to dump that down the toilet like he said,” Vegh said.

Reach Greg Hafkin at [email protected].