Though our historical presidential election has come to an end, many questions continue to be asked of our new President Elect. But one question that many are curious about seems to go unanswered. And that question is, has Barack Obama really quit smoking?

On Sunday Obama announced that he has quit, but has “fallen off the wagon” occasionally. Another article reports that Obama has declared he has quit, but admits to “intermittent cigarette smoking.”

So what does this tell the American people and furthermore, what does it tell smokers and quitters?

Obama’s struggle to quit shows everyone just how hard it is to quit smoking. Here we have a man who has beaten all odds to become our nation’s first black president, and who has been credited with inspiring a historic amount of people to vote. Yet this man of considerable strength and inspiration struggles with something that so many others struggle with every day.

Some of you may be thinking, “Well if he can’t quit, how am I supposed to quit?”

And to that question I point out how smoking and quitting smoking have always been the great equalizer. Both bring people of all backgrounds, classes, ethnicities and sexual orientations together. The reasons to smoke, the desperation to quit, the slips and relapses, and the victories know no bounds. Rather, it is up to the individual, no matter who they are, to put in the unrelenting commitment to quit smoking.

Something else it demonstrates is how stress is one of the most challenging things about quitting. I may not have spoken with Obama personally, (not yet anyways!), but one can only imagine that a presidential campaign and the transition to the White House must be filled with many complex layers of stress. As he shared with Tom Brokaw during his campaign, "I figure, seeing as I'm running for president, I need to cut myself a little slack." Of smokers, stress is the big equalizer- and you don't have to be aiming for the White House to feel overwhelmed. Stress is the shared trigger that keeps smokers smoking and can cause former smokers to slip or relapse.

We may never know the answer to whether or not Obama quits for good, but I think we can all delight in the fact that this man is, at the end of the day, just like the rest of us. And furthermore, he is proof of just how powerfully addicting and habit-forming cigarettes are.

Fortunately, there are ways to get help -- this is why we're here. So President-Elect Obama, if you happen to read this in a search for answers to quit smoking, I would like to tell you, as someone who supported your campaign and as a dedicated Quit Coach, YES YOU CAN!