LISA MORRISON has always considered herself a pillar of health. She ate only organic food, exercised often and meditated. The only glitch in her otherwise exemplary existence was the pack of Marlboros that she had inhaled daily since age 18.

By the time Ms. Morrison, now 50, went to see Dr. Vincent Giampapa, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Montclair, N.J., she had tried everything to quit for the sake of her health. “Acupuncture, the patch, hypnosis,” she said. “Nothing worked.”

Nothing, that is, until 2007, when Dr. Giampapa told her she would have to toss her beloved cigarettes if she wanted a neck- and eye-lift. “The doctor strongly suggested that if I wanted to heal properly I needed to quit,” Ms. Morrison said. “When you start talking about your face, it becomes motivating.”

Each year, roughly 40 to 45 percent of the 45 million smokers nationwide try to quit, according to Dr. Michael Fiore, the director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention, in Madison. Only about 5 percent quit for life.