People that use tobacco products should quit – the sooner the better. Quitting smoking is the best thing that smokers can do for their health. But it is very difficult to quit smoking: nicotine is a more addictive
drug than heroin or cocaine. Only one quit attempt out of 40 is successful. On average, former smokers report that they made eight quit attempts before succeeding. And although about 70% of adult smokers say they
want to quit, over 60% never try to quit in any given year.
What about the nicotine patch and similar nicotine replacement products? These products provide nicotine without the cigarette, and help to wean your body off of nicotine (nicotine itself is not a health risk).
The typical effects of withdrawal are minimized as your body adjusts to not smoking and progressively lower doses of nicotine, until the use of the nicotine replacement product is stopped completely.
Sounds good, but the results are disappointing. Makers of the patch, gum, spray and lozenge, report that 93% of people that try their products are back on tobacco within 6 months.
And it has been estimated that about a third of the sales of nicotine replacement products are to repeat users – people become addicted to the patch just as they were to cigarettes. Even so, it's better than getting your
nicotine from tobacco products!
The fact is that the physical addiction to nicotine can be overcome in a few weeks, but the habits and ritual behaviors that are associated with and trigger smoking are harder to recognize and overcome. To learn more, visit
the American Lung Association's excellent collection of on-line information resources at lungusa.org.
