Nicotine Replacement Therapy Doesn’t Work

 

When I say Nicotine Replacement Therapy Doesn’t Work, I am making this statement based not only on my own experiences but on recent findings too. I have always believed that the best way to quit smoking is to work on the psychological aspect of smoking. The physical nicotine addiction is very easy to overcome and takes just a few days, but the best quit smoking methods always deal with more than just nicotine cravings.

The findings of Harvard School of Public Health researchers earlier this year proves that to be true.

There are always statistics showing that smokers find it easier to quit using NRT, but I think that is because most smokers are afraid to quit smoking, fearing nicotine withdrawal pangs, so they turn to NRT in order to cope with nicotine withdrawal. In truth, they are just giving themselves a new crutch and giving themselves the confidence to quit in the first place.

I’m not interested in quitting smoking for a short-time, I’m interested in which methods help people quit smoking successfully. The aforementioned research carried out by Harvard School of Public Health shows that over 33% of people who quit using NRT have relapsed within two years of quitting.

Ok, so you might think ”That means 66% did quit forever, so NRT is successful,” but when I tell you that the relapse rate for ANY quit attempt, whether using NRT or some other way to quit smoking, is also 33%, it kind of makes you wonder, “If NRT has the same relapse rate as any other method, is it really the best way?” Stop smoking methods seem to differ wildly, but the results are similar if you are focusing on the nicotine itself.

What about my own personal experience?


I tried quitting first with nicotine replacement gum, then with an inhaler, then with patches, then went back to gum, back to inhaler, and finally gave up…until I quit with the Easy Way to Quit Smoking book. Before I found the book, I was convinced that NRT doesn’t work, so I simply stopped trying.

I felt that it wasn’t working, for the following reasons:

1. I wasn’t really missing the nicotine, I was missing something else (at the time I didn’t know what)
2. I was just becoming reliant on the gum/inhaler/patch and wasn’t really free of nicotine addiction
3. It all just made me want to smoke a cigarette more
4. One of the reasons I wanted to stop smoking was to save money, and NRT was almost as expensive as cigarettes (and a lot more stressful)
5. It was embarrassing to use in public (except for the gum)

So if nicotine replacement therapy doesn’t work, then what does?

Anything that takes the emphasis away from nicotine, and into your mind seems to work forever. Anybody can quit smoking for a set period of time (I think everybody has) but it takes real psychological work to be free from nicotine forever. That effort doesn’t have to be hard, it just has to be the right method. Don’t work hard, work smart.

Here’s what worked for me.