There is a quit smoking shot treatment that smokers can get in order to help them quit smoking.
“Sounds great,” you think. A shot that will help me to quit smoking. This is sort of like the magic wand approach. We want something to come along and make it easier for us to quit smoking. And of course, this is a reasonable thought on the part of the smoker. There is nothing wrong with wanting some help in overcoming our addiction.
But in this case, you have to understand what really happened here. This is not the case of drug research scientists being in the lab, researching new compounds and chemicals, and they stumble on something that they think might be of help to the smoker who is trying to quit. That would have been a real medical discovery that eventually led to a new drug or a new type of treatment.
Instead, what happened here is that the marketing people said “Let’s see….we already have a patch they can wear, and a gum they can chew, and all sorts of pills to quit smoking. What if we could give them a shot of some sort?” So they researched what medications would possible be appropriate for a smoker who is trying to quit and they came up with 2 medications that they could package into one shot. One of them is basically just an antihistamine to help people calm down, and is really no different than taking an allergy pill that you can buy over the counter. The other medication is not really proven to help in any way, and just seems to be along for the ride.
So in this case, you have to see that they are trying to make money with this one more than they are trying to help smokers. They did not find medication and say “huh, this would work well as a shot.” Instead, they designed the idea of a shot to quit smoking and then went and found some medications that might be suitable for it.
I would ignore the idea of a quit smoking shot and put your energy into other quit smoking strategies. To be honest, the most powerful technique and strategy for quitting is probably the thing that everyone likes the least: start exercising vigorously once a day and stick to it. Nobody wants to do that, and no one can stick to a once-per-day schedule. But if you can, this will make a huge difference in helping you to quit smoking….much more so than a shot with practically random medications selected for it.
