The bottom line - if you are planning to quit go cold turkey. Your irritability over not being able to smoke, or chew as the case may be, peaks at 72 hours. After that it's all down hill. The trick, or crux, is that you CAN NOT touch it again or the cycle starts all over again. Another 3 days of cravings..
One other note - nicotine DOES NOT give you anything. It takes away. A cigarette is a potent nicotine delivery vehicle. Within 10 seconds of your first hit on a cigarette your brain is swimming in nicotine. YES, the results are initially pleasurable, but the crash, which starts within minutes after smoking, is what makes you reach for another cigarette, and another cigarette, and another cigarette. (Just like a heroin addict or a cocaine addict or a crack addict.) Nicotine doesn't calm you or help you in any way. It's killing you. And if you toss the pack out the window and never look back within ONE WEEK you'll already be feeling better.
OK, here's that research...
It can take up to 72 hours for the blood-serum to become nicotine-free and 90% of nicotine's metabolites to exit the body via your urine. It's then that the anxieties associated with readjustment normally peak in intensity and begin to gradually decline. But just one powerful "hit" of nicotine and you'll again face another 72 hours of detox anxieties. It's why the one puff survival rate is almost zero. None of us are stronger than nicotine but then we don't need to be as it is simply a chemical with an I.Q. of zero. It does not plot, plan or conspire and is not some demon within us. Our most effective weapon against it is, and always has been, our vastly superior intelligence but only if put to work.
The key to nicotine dependency recovery is not in dragging out the 72 hours of detox by toying for weeks or months with gradual nicotine weaning or other creative means for delivering nicotine. The nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) industry want smokers to believe that a natural poison is medicine, that its use is therapy, and that it is somehow different from the tobacco plant's nicotine molecule. The truth is that the pharmaceutical industry buys its nicotiana from the exact same growers as the tobacco industry. They want you to believe that double-blind placebo controlled studies proved that NRT doubles a cold turkey quitters odds of quitting and that only superheros can quit without it. The truth is that their studies were not blind as claimed, and that all but a tiny sliver of earth's successful quitters are quitting entirely on their own. Here are a few facts that those selling creative nicotine delivery devices would rather you not know:
Nicotine is a psychoactive drug whose "high" provides a dopamine "aaahhh" sensation and an adrenaline rush. Would you have been able to tell, within 5 minutes, whether the gum or lozenge you'd been given contained the nicotine equilivent of smoking two cigarettes or was instead a nicotine-free placebo? So could they. A 2004 study found that NRT studies suffered from massive wide-spread blinding failures (May 2004)
A nicotine smoker's natural odds of quitting for six months, entirely on their own, without any products, procedures, education programs, counseling or formal support is roughly 10% (June 2000)
Those using the over-the-counter (OTC) nicotine patch or gum as a stand-alone quitting tool have only a 7% chance of quitting smoking for six months (March 2003)
Up to 7% of OTC nicotine gum quitters are still chronic users of nicotine gum at six months (May 2004). Question: isn't 7 minus 7 still zero? (May 2004)
36.6% of all current nicotine gum users are chronic long-term users (May 2004)
You truly would have to be a superhero to quit while using the nicotine patch if you've already attempted using it once and relapsed. The only two patch user "recycling" studies ever conducted have both shown that nearly 100% of second-time nicotine patch users relapse to smoking nicotine within six months (April 1993 and August 1995)
91.2% of all successful long-term ex-smokers quit entirely on their own without resort to any product, procedure or program of any kind including hypnosis, Zyban, Wellbutrin, acupuncture, magic herbs, laser therapy, or the nicotine patch, gum, lozenge, spray, or inhaler (ACS 2003)
Education, understanding, new skills and serious support can more than triple your natural six-month odds of 10% (April 2003)
Those who refuse to allow any nicotine back into their bloodstream have 100% odds of remaining nicotine free today! (Today, Tomorrow & Always!)
The ONLY way to truly quit is to go cold turkey and never look back!
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