What are the best quit smoking methods? What is more likely to work for most people, given all the different methods for quitting that are available out there?
For example, there are nicotine replacement methods, such as with the patch and the gum and the lozenges. There are holistic methods, such as hypnosis. There are medical methods, such as the pills to help you stop like Chantix or Zyban.
So what methods should be tried? What is truly helpful and what is a waste of time and money?
Well, a couple of things to note:
One is that different people might succeed using different methods. Simple as that. Believe it or not, I tried nearly everything over the period of a few years, and I finally tried cold turkey and it worked for me. So experimentation might be the key.
Two is that many methods are actually designed to make money, not to necessarily cure smoking. For example, the nicotine replacement products are a multi billion dollar per year industry. Most people do not realize how big that is or why it is so large. The reason it is large is because many of the same smokers continue to use their products. See the problem here? The products don’t really work all that great.
The patch and the gum seem to have good success rates, but only in short term studies of less than a year. Look at long term success rates and you will see why the patch and the gum companies make several billion per year.
A third thing to consider is that if you are smoking, and not trying to quit, then you are wasting time, your life, and your money. Don’t ever do this. Don’t ever just smoke. Always be trying to quit. If that means you need to hop from one stop smoking method to the other, then do it. You should be trying to quit with the desperation of a drowning man. If you just allow yourself to kick back and smoke without any regrets, then you will stay stuck for a long time. Take action and force yourself to get serious about quitting. Getting serious means that you will never allow yourself to just smoke without any thoughts about it. You need to stay vigilant and keep pushing yourself to quit until you succeed. This is a mental shift more than anything and once you make the mental leap that you are going to quit smoking no matter what, then it will not matter so much what methods you try.
