There is no medical “cure” for smoking, even when using quit smoking aids. Smoking consists of two components: 1) a physical addiction to nicotine 2) a psychological addiction to the habit of smoking
There are treatments to help with the physical addiction, but take it from someone who has quit – 98% of the battle is psychological.
Here are some tips I can offer to stop smoking:
1) Don’t buy cigarettes. Sure you can still bum them from friends and such, but this should help cut back a lot.
2) To fight the urges for the first couple weeks, when you want a cigarette take a few very deep breaths. A lot of the crud you get from smoking gets caught in your lungs and you can actually kick it back into your bloodstream by taking deep breaths (until your body eventually cleans it out, but that’ll take a couple weeks).
3) Take it one day at a time. Every day you need to recommit to your goal of “not smoking today”. Get through one day at a time and before you know it your urges will diminish.
4) Avoid drinking. As we all understand without the science, drinking alcohol lowers your inhibitions (the science supports this too, which is pretty interesting.) So, when you drink it will be much more difficult to resist the urge to smoke.
5) Find someone that will support you in your effort. If you get the urge to smoke and are fighting it, call your friend and let them remind you why you’re quitting.