Sometimes a quit smoking aid will help you get over immediate cravings and withdrawal symptoms, but in the longer term will it work?

The goal in using these tools is to help you get through the physical addiciton over the first few days and weeks.  After weaning yourself off of them, you can quit whatever aid you’ve been using and live smoke free!

For health and medical reasons, some people are unable to use certain quit smoking aids.  Pregnant women are advised against using many drugs, for example, such as Chantix.  Skin sensitivities prevent others from using nicotine patches.

Have you had to replace one type of aid for another?  What did you find to work best?

I got this email the other day:

I smoke about 6 cigarettes a day and I want to quit. I know that’s not a lot, but I hate everything about it. Any thoughts? Should I try cold turkey and just suck up the side effects? I’ve tried before but unsuccessfull. Any thoughts welcome, but please no bashing. Thanks!

You can quit cold turkey, which works great for a lot of people, or you can try a quit smoking aid. You just have to be consistent. You have to keep trying if you fail, and if you keep trying you can’t help but succeed eventually. The best advice is to just set a date, plan for it, and then throw away all the smoking materials, matches, ashtrays, lighters, etc. Go on a trip if you can, for a few days, or bury yourself in work or at school. Don’t drink booze for a while, it lowers your inhibitions and resistance. Give yourself some light negative reinforcement whenever you think about smoking–like walk around the block, do 10 or 20 pushups, or pinch yourself unpleasantly on the arm. Just don’t hurt yourself. Anyway, good luck.

There’s so many different quit smoking aids on the market, some of them affordable and some pretty pricey.  My neighbor recently quit with just the aid of chewing gum, and she was quitting a pack a day habit.  She said she got the idea because a friend of hers swore by sugar-free suckers, so she figured maybe half of her problem was just habit, just plain old oral fixation.

And lo and behold!  It worked.  So don’t get discouraged - different things work for different people.

Someone had this to say about using hypnosis as a quit smoking aid:

I was hypnotised 25 years ago to give up smoking - it worked for as long as I was having hypnosis. Luckily, mine was done free by an anaesthetist who was looking for guinea pigs to practice on so he could use it for pain relief for patients. I’m glad I didn’t pay though, otherwise I would have had an expensive habit and an expensive therapy.

I eventually gave up the day my mum died from cancer which was the day after I found out I was pregnant and at the same time as we were really struggling financially. A really bad time in my life. I figured that I was always ‘waiting for the right time’ which never happened, so why not try a really bad time instead. That was 22 years ago and I’ve never looked back.

There seems to be something new on the market every time you turn around - ever done a quick Google search for New Quit Smoking Aids?  It’s easy to get caught up in every gimmick.  No matter where you look, though, or how much money you spend, you’re never going to be able to really quit unless you WANT to quit.  Smell your clothes, look at your checkbook, take a run; if those things don’t encourage you to take your health into your own hands, no product on the market will be able to.  Good luck!

Someone emailed me this link for a quit smoking aid site and it looked like it might be worth checking out:  http://stopsmoking.eu.pn/

This is what they said about it:

This site is designed for everyone who seriously wants to stop smoking.

This site tackles smoking from an addiction perspective; It doesn’t matter if you are a five a day teenager, or a one hundred a day pensioner, male or female, or if this is your first or fiftieth attempt at stopping, if you follow all instructions, certainly you’ll become a non-smoker.

Has anyone heard of the Allen Carr Method?  I don’t think this is just another quit smoking aid.  It seems like I’ve heard of a lot of people reading this and having it work for them.  This is what someone sent into me:

Get the Facts
Easyway, founded by Allen Carr in 1983, has the highest independently verified 12-month success rate (75.8% for a smoker completing the program) of any quit smoking technique and a 90% satisfaction rating.

Compare Easyway to other methods and see for yourself why Easyway is called “The Cadillac of quit smoking methods.”

The Allen Carr Method
HOW THE METHOD WORKS

Using psychotherapy, the method works in the opposite way to the “willpower” method. It does not concentrate on the reasons the smoker should not smoke : the money, the slavery, the health risks and the stigma. Smokers know all that already. Instead it focuses on why smokers continue to smoke in spite of the obvious disadvantages.

It is fear that keeps smokers hooked!

Fear the smoker will have to give up their pleasure or crutch. Fear the smoker will be unable to enjoy life or handle stress. Fear the smoker will have to go through an awful trauma to get free. Fear the smoker will never get completely free from the craving.

The Method removes these fears
Smokers quit with the Allen Carr Method as happy non-smokers, not feeling deprived but with a huge sense of relief and elation that they have finally achieved what they always wanted….

TO BE FREE!

What about the terrible withdrawal pangs from nicotine?

The physical withdrawal from nicotine is so slight that most smokers don’t realise that they are addicts. What smokers suffer when they try and quit using other methods is the misery and depression caused by the belief that they are being deprived of a pleasure or a crutch.

The Allen Carr Method removes this feeling of deprivation.
It removes the need and desire to smoke. Once the smoker is in the right frame of mind and they follow the simple instructions, the physical withdrawal from nicotine is hardly noticeable.

No Gimmicks!

The Method does not use any gimmicks, useless aids or substitutes. No nicotine gum, patches, lozenges, tabs, inhilators or nasal sprays! No needles! No lasers! No drugs! No herbs! No shock treatment!

The Allen Carr Method is successful because:

It removes the smokers’ conflict of will.
There are no bad withdrawal pangs.
It is instantaneous and easy.
It is equally effective for long-term heavy smokers and light smokers.
You need not gain weight.
You will not miss smoking.

It sounds kind of gimmicky but I’m starting to think maybe it’s a really great thing to try out.

Got this letter:

“I have tried so many quit smoking aids in the past and have had such terrible luck.  Smoking to me now tastes terrible and I have begun to hate it but I still get the craving to light up. I have Chantix and many other aids and I seem to have a bad reaction to them all. I have to do this without the aid of patches, pills, gum and I have even had hypnosis and that didn’t work as well. Any advice on what might help me. Please Help!!!!!!!!”

Well, it’s fairly common for many types of quit smoking products to have negative side-effects associated with them, especially Chantix, which seems to cause nightmares and panic attacs in sensitive people.  If you’re really ready to quit, and smoking already tastes bad to you, toughing it out might just be your best option.  Give cold turkey a chance!  Suck on hard candy, drink lots of water and practice some deep breathing.  In time, the cravings will subside.

Someone wrote into me with this story and is hoping to get some encouragement!  Leave some comments if you can:

This is well over my fifth attempt to give up smoking, I’ve smoked for the past five years. That may not seem like a while but to me it does, and the habit is woven into my everyday life.

As most smokers know, it’s a rocky road ahead after quitting. There are so many triggers such as a favorite beverage that goes great with a smoke like coffee, after a meal, boredom, after an accomplishment, driving and of coarse stress and many other triggers.

If I am serious about qutting and staying with my goal, what can I do instead? I thought about crocheting or knitting?? Any good gums or quit smoking aids that can be recommended? I’ve heard about Chantix working well. The patch did not work for me. I am almost out of the two packs of nicotine gum I had saved from the last time I quit. What should I do when I run out?? What are some things I can do to take my mind off of smoking?