Something I don't understand about quit smoking aids

[manic_depressive13]

I'm fairly certain they are just placebos. If you understand how placebos work (well no one really does but you get the point) then you will understand the point of patches and gum.

Quitting cold turkey really isn't difficult. I smoked 4-5 a day for about a year and quit rather suddenly on a whim about 4 months ago. Sure I felt the urge to smoke a bunch of times during the first month, but it's not a jeckyll/hyde type thing like some people make it out to be, where you turn into a raging, sweating, anxiety ridden beast. It's no more difficult than trying to give up sugary drinks or chocolate, and significantly easier than giving up meat.

Maybe I just wasn't smoking enough, but I would bet my tits that half the people who have exteme difficulty quitting do so because quitting is played up as being extremely difficult, precisely for the purpose of sellin gums and patches.

 

[lechat]

The theory:

They do not help. You reinforce the idea that a: it's supposed to be easy to quit and b: you never deal with the fact that you're addicted to nicotine properly as your behaviour undermines you. This is why the quitting rates (Which are depressingly low) are the same cold-turkey or aided.

I quit cold-turkey, it's an experience you just have to suck up and push through don't kid yourself on.

studies show that nicotine replacement is more effective than cold turkey. the results aren't great but they are there. i assume you mean in the case of long term relapse which is the same amongst nearly all forms of quitting while short term relapse is lower under aids

I tried a cigarette (yeah, yeah, it was peer pressure) but I could barely smoke a puff without coughing badly, so I don't smoke and my health (and wallet) are better off for it.

How do you people keep up smoking? I know the nicotine is addictive, but I am surprised how many people can inhale smoke in their lungs without getting sick.

you would have a hard time finding a smoker that enjoyed their first cigarette but like all addictions eventually it becomes pleasant. comparably the average american can't stand vegemite but over here we friggn love the shit for no other reason than we gave it a chance when we were kids

The habit is the hardest thing about smoking to kick. It becomes a crutch in ones life. Some people have the will power to just stop. Others do not. Nicotine in the quantities that the average person takes in from patches is barely harmful. To be serious, most 24 hour patches contain approximately 2 - 4mg's of nicotine. Not that much and seriously not very harmful. There was a time when people were ingesting a lot more than that a day from pesticides.

actually the nicotine in nicotine replacement therapy is a lot higher than you might think. sure a cigarette might have 12mg of nicotine while a tablet or gum has 1-4 but you do not smoke a whole cigarette, you might only inhale 50% of a cig while the rest burns away uninhaled and of that 50% your lungs will only absorb a small portion of that
when i first tried nicotine tablets i started on 4mg but even though i smoked up to 2 packs a day of 16mg a single tablet was enough to make me feel nauseous and dizzy
the effects of large doses of nicotine in a small period of time even to a long tern heavy smoker are very effective in temporarily easing cravings

I'm fairly certain they are just placebos. If you understand how placebos work (well no one really does but you get the point) then you will understand the point of patches and gum.

Quitting cold turkey really isn't difficult. I smoked 4-5 a day for about a year and quit rather suddenly on a whim about 4 months ago. Sure I felt the urge to smoke a bunch of times during the first month, but it's not a jeckyll/hyde type thing like some people make it out to be, where you turn into a raging, sweating, anxiety ridden beast. It's no more difficult than trying to give up sugary drinks or chocolate, and significantly easier than giving up meat.

Maybe I just wasn't smoking enough, but I would bet my tits that half the people who have exteme difficulty quitting do so because quitting is played up as being extremely difficult, precisely for the purpose of sellin gums and patches.

no offense but i find that fairly naive
for starters there is a big difference in smoking 5 a day and smoking 20 a day. not to say you weren't addicted as even at those low doses you would have still developed a dependance on nicotine but it would have been nothing compared to the average smoker
stating that they are placebos is just purely wrong. a placebo by definition has no active ingredient while all forms of nicotine replacement have the active ingredient which is considered to be the most addictive in cigarettes


i'm not gonna say that gums/patches/tablets/inhalers are the most effective way to quit smoking, again i think champix is the best drug on the market, but as a way to cut down nicotine cravings while removing the mental addiction and bodily harm it is a valid option

 

[WWmelb]

actually the nicotine in nicotine replacement therapy is a lot higher than you might think. sure a cigarette might have 12mg of nicotine while a tablet or gum has 1-4 but you do not smoke a whole cigarette, you might only inhale 50% of a cig while the rest burns away uninhaled and of that 50% your lungs will only absorb a small portion of that
when i first tried nicotine tablets i started on 4mg but even though i smoked up to 2 packs a day of 16mg a single tablet was enough to make me feel nauseous and dizzy

Actually the MG strength of a cigarette may say it is a 12mg cigarette, but is referring to the tar quantity. The average nicotine ammount is 10% of that, 1.2mg per cigarette.

A 4mg cig has 4mg of tar and .4mg of nicotine.

These also are the maximum ammounts of the chemicals in each cigarette, and the ACTUAL ammounts are roughly half the maximum.

This would explain the nausea from the replacements as they were actually probably higher than what you were used to

 

[Angie7F]

I think people prone to addiction are just prone to any kind of addiction.
You can shift the focus from smoking, to chewing, to drinking to whatever.
The bigger solution is to find out what ticks them off and causes them to do these actions.

Anyhow, as long as people stop smoking it is good enough for me.

 

[Yopaz]

The thing is that nicotine might be slightly toxic, but, it's among the least toxic chemicals that you inhale when you smoke. When you chew a nicotine gum you reduce the chance of lung cancer, you eliminate tissue damage in the lungs, there's no tar and it does not hurt your taste buds or cause bad breath.

It''s also hard for some to just give up the habit of smoking, the habit and the nicotine addiction is often considered to be two separate things to get out of your system. Getting nicotine from other sources breaks the habit without causing withdrawal. I don't know if this is true, but this is what someone I know who quit smoking told me, though she stopped without such aids.

Edit: Also smell triggers memories which can in turn trigger your brain to want the substance you're addicted to. I tried cutting back on coffee due to my coffee machine breaking. I went a week without any problems, but then I smelled it. It was hell, I spent an hour caught with the smell and being unable to get some of my own. I was unfocused, I was desperate, I had to have it, I was almost at the point of taking her cup, I was at the point of aggressive behaviour.

When smoking the smell sticks to your clothes, spiking memories constantly, but much more subtle. You avoid that with gum or patches.

 

[lechat]

actually the nicotine in nicotine replacement therapy is a lot higher than you might think. sure a cigarette might have 12mg of nicotine while a tablet or gum has 1-4 but you do not smoke a whole cigarette, you might only inhale 50% of a cig while the rest burns away uninhaled and of that 50% your lungs will only absorb a small portion of that
when i first tried nicotine tablets i started on 4mg but even though i smoked up to 2 packs a day of 16mg a single tablet was enough to make me feel nauseous and dizzy

Actually the MG strength of a cigarette may say it is a 12mg cigarette, but is referring to the tar quantity. The average nicotine ammount is 10% of that, 1.2mg per cigarette.

A 4mg cig has 4mg of tar and .4mg of nicotine.

These also are the maximum ammounts of the chemicals in each cigarette, and the ACTUAL ammounts are roughly half the maximum.

This would explain the nausea from the replacements as they were actually probably higher than what you were used to

thank you i should have checked that fact
also goes to validate what i was saying about nicotine replacement being pretty high strength
i should note that the tablets i was taking were recommended at (i think) 1 every 4 hours while a smoker is quite likely to have multiple cigarettes an hour

 

[Scarim Coral]

You do realise not everyone is the same when it come to dealing with a task right? Just because one person can quit full stop and can go cold turkey willing doesn't mean everyone else can do the same thing.
It will be like telling a group of alcohol drinkers to quit drinking, some will do it easily while those are a heavy drinker find it more difficult.

 

[burningdragoon]

I tried a cigarette (yeah, yeah, it was peer pressure) but I could barely smoke a puff without coughing badly, so I don't smoke and my health (and wallet) are better off for it.

How do you people keep up smoking? I know the nicotine is addictive, but I am surprised how many people can inhale smoke in their lungs without getting sick.

3-hit combo of peer pressure, alcohol, and desensitivity to the act. AKA your around some friends who smoke, your inhibitions may be lowered from alcohol, and you see them smoking and think "hey, why not give it (another) go? Maybe I'll like it (this time)." Then eventually you do "like" it.

--

Edit: Right, the topic. The idea is help ween yourself off the drug and to break the habit/oral fixation of the actual act. Of course that's already been said a few times, so yeah.

 

[MetalDooley]

Tell you what, take up smoking for 5 or more years and then go cold turkey .... come back and let me know how that works out for you.

Pretty good actually and this is coming from someone who smoked for the best part of 20 years.I tried all the gum,patches and other bullshit and none of it helped.In the end cold turkey was the only thing that worked for me

 

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

I've always wondered what is the point of quit smoking aids such as gum, lozenges, or patches. The goal to quitting smoking is to rid oneself of the addiction to nicotine, correct?

Incorrect, actually. Nicotine by itself isn't really unhealthy - it's fatal in large doses, what with being related to nightshade and all, but the health effects are minuscule compared to cigarettes and the like. Heart rate and blood pressure increase might not sound like fun, but they're preferable to lung cancer.

The main thing that quitting cigarettes is about is to stop sucking all the tar and carcinogens into your lungs. If you smoke electronic cigarettes, chew gum, use the patch, whatever, you're getting the nicotine but without all the chemicals, which are what really screw you over.

The best solution is not to be addicted to anything, but having nicotine is far better than having cigarettes.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

My dad was able to quit cold turkey, he was very good about it, didn't snap or nothing!

My mom has been trying to quit for years, she has constantly been on and off, saying that this time she will never start again...she always goes back on them. She has been off a year now, that is a record, hope it sticks.

I tried a cigarette (yeah, yeah, it was peer pressure) but I could barely smoke a puff without coughing badly, so I don't smoke and my health (and wallet) are better off for it.

How do you people keep up smoking? I know the nicotine is addictive, but I am surprised how many people can inhale smoke in their lungs without getting sick.

I do belieeve your mother and mine share the same willpower when it comes to giving up their smokes =P

As for myself my folks asked if I thought of giving up to which I said I could do with giving up and so I did on 1st of the new year and at the moment I'm using an E-cigarette and once I've used up the extra 11mg attachments I'll be fully done with the habit.

Not that I had much of a problem with it in the first place since it calmed me down and kept me rather lax but the e-cig works fine.

 

[bobajob]

I stopped smoking unfiltered hand-rolled cigs for about 18 months(I liked the taste - what?)
Last year I decided to vape (E-cigs)
More of a smoking replacement than a stop smoking aid.
Reason being, I missed the physical act & the mixing your own E-liquid flavours & re-coiling the atomiser(coil glows red-hot as the flavoured nic-liquid is wicked in) is like a ritual in it's own right. A hobby, if you will. Oh, the many, many flavours!
Gets you funny looks & is a good talking point though. Plus you can totally do it indoors, doesn't stink up your clothes/home etc.
I can say that it has no noticeable impact on fitness, lung capacity or throat nastiness you get with "traditional" cigs; Also it is possible to go practically the whole day without a hit & not go nuts. I can only chalk that up to the thousands of other chemical compounds also contained in the stinkies, some of them are evidently put there on purpose in order to facilitate the addiction to them.

Food for thought.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

You should cook turkey rather than eating it cold.

 

[WWmelb]

actually the nicotine in nicotine replacement therapy is a lot higher than you might think. sure a cigarette might have 12mg of nicotine while a tablet or gum has 1-4 but you do not smoke a whole cigarette, you might only inhale 50% of a cig while the rest burns away uninhaled and of that 50% your lungs will only absorb a small portion of that
when i first tried nicotine tablets i started on 4mg but even though i smoked up to 2 packs a day of 16mg a single tablet was enough to make me feel nauseous and dizzy

Actually the MG strength of a cigarette may say it is a 12mg cigarette, but is referring to the tar quantity. The average nicotine ammount is 10% of that, 1.2mg per cigarette.

A 4mg cig has 4mg of tar and .4mg of nicotine.

These also are the maximum ammounts of the chemicals in each cigarette, and the ACTUAL ammounts are roughly half the maximum.

This would explain the nausea from the replacements as they were actually probably higher than what you were used to

Yeah it's true that per unit there's more nicotine, but a person with a pack a day habit isn't meant to chew 20 pieces of gum a day. Can't find the box but I think it's recommended you take no more than 8 a day, I used to take about 5. Your only supposed to chew briefly then stop, pushing it between your gums and cheek until you get another craving. Another reason the gum is the one I'd prefer, it's slow release like the patches but it helps with the habit as well, giving you something to distract yourself.

That's very true. For long flights i generally go with lozenges and have something nice to suck with it so it doesn't taste like ass. Phrasing i know.. that could probably be taken some bad ways ... lmao

 

[Vivi22]

I've always wondered what is the point of quit smoking aids such as gum, lozenges, or patches. The goal to quitting smoking is to rid oneself of the addiction to nicotine, correct? So, how does having an alternate nicotine source help? It seems sort of counter productive as wouldn't you just be continuing to fulfill the addiction?

Isn't the point to rid yourself of the addiction entirely instead of just shifting the way it is administered? It sounds like the same thing as quitting cigarettes by replacing it with dip or chewing tobacco.

To me quitting cold turkey which is difficult seems like the only effective option. Of course I could be completely wrong about this and is why I'm asking.

The idea, I would imagine, is to taper off to ease the nicotine withdrawal. The thing about trying to just quit cold turkey isn't just that nicotine withdrawal would probably be a ***** for a lot of people, but there's also a psychological addiction you have to break which is almost harder than the nicotine addiction to break. In fact, the physical addiction to nicotine passes quite quickly I believe. But not everyone can go cold turkey and deal with it, so ease the nicotine withdrawal and they really only have the psychological aspect to overcome.

I'm not saying it necessarily works since I've never smoked, but the reasoning seems sound to me. Might not work for everyone, but it's something to try.

 

[Baneat]

studies show that nicotine replacement is more effective than cold turkey. the results aren't great but they are there. i assume you mean in the case of long term relapse which is the same amongst nearly all forms of quitting while short term relapse is lower under aids

Are you just guessing about the studies or...?

Check out the sources provided at the beginning of this article:

http://whyquit.com/pr/053110.html

 

[Idlemessiah]

I quit for new year after smoking for nearly 4 years. It's been 10 days and 2 hours since my last cigarette. Sure I still think about it but the cravings are just about gone.

Cold turkey. No bullshit, just tell yourself "NO". Don't keep any emergency cigs. Throw everything away and just don't buy any more, it's as simple as that.

Nicotine patches and gum are a waste of time in my opinion. I never even bothered with them. Why "cut down" or "taper off" when you can cut off and purge? Sure you're not smoking any more but you're still addicted to nicotine, and you're not saving any money, then there's always the temptation of "to hell with the dumb plasters I'm going for a fag".

Like I said, the best way (note: I didn't say easiest, I said best.) to quit smoking is to do just that and keep telling yourself NO!

 

[Realitycrash]

As far as I know, I am immune to addiction to cigarettes, or at least it does not affect me in the same manner that it does others. I have been on-off smoking for ten years, but the only time I feel a 'need' to smoke is when I drink, and then it's more 'Damn, a cigarette would taste really swell right now'. And so I have one. And I might even have an entire pack, because I like the taste.
And when I wake up, hung over, I feel no desire what-so-ever to smoke, and I continue to have no desire what-so-ever to smoke until I drink alcohol the next time. I've been doing this for ten years (and I've been drunk at least twice a month for the last ten years) Whatever addictive properties nicotine has, it holds no sway over me. If I don't drink, I don't smoke. There's no compulsion, no desire, no uneasy feelings. It doesn't even register. I just don't feel a thing.
I always found this weird, given how much people go on about 'all it takes is one cigarette' or the like.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Those things help your cravings out without fucking your lungs over in the meantime. Trust me, I'm a pharmacist-in-training.

 

[Something Amyss]

EDIT: Alright from what I gather from most of the responses is that quit smoking aids are a healthier way to get nicotine or they are used to gradually taper off.

Partially, but the other element is the habit associated with smoking. Breaking that habit (the act of actually lighting up, etc) is very helpful in helping you quit the actual drug.