Quit Smoking Cold Turkey? Now There's an Easier Way

If you have tried to quit smoking and failed, you are a member of a very large group. If you have tried to quit cold turkey, that is, one day you just stopped, and failed, that group is smaller, but the results are the same. Giving up the smoking habit, no matter what method is used, is not only difficult, for 40 million smokers who try it each year, it's seems a virtual impossibility.

And that's exactly the way Big Tobacco wants to keep it. Millions try to quit, and millions fail. It's been that way for many decades. The latest statistics show the success rate for quitters each year is a dismal 2.4 percent. Until recently, there has been very little in the way of tools or devices available that actually worked in achieving quit status . The nicotine patches, gums and other substitutes have barely made a dent in the quit success rate.

And although it's been reported that most would be quitters try to do it cold turkey, that is, just one day stop smoking and never start again, that is probably the hardest way to get the job done among many unattractive choices. I did it that way, after smoking for 40 years, and I can tell you, it easily ranks way up there among the most difficult and unpleasant experiences of my life. For me, the hardest part was breaking the little habits that facilitate or support the big habit. But unlike many who go the cold turkey route, I had no unpleasant physical side effects, no nausea, no headaches, no anxiety attacks. Just overcoming the incredible craving to smoke. Just resisting the almost overpowering urge to just say, screw this, I can't do it, and start again.

For what it's worth, if you are thinking about going this route, it comes down to mind over matter. Having the mental willpower to resist doing what your entire body is screaming at you to do. You quit smoking one hour at a time. Literally. There are lots of tricks you can use to help. Some work, most don't. As was just mentioned, smoking is a habit, involving lots of little habits. So one of the tricks is to avoid the little habits as much as possible. So, if one of your little habits is to light up as soon as you get in the car, you simply stop doing that. If you normally light up after a meal, you have to just stop doing that.

And I don't mean to make it sound trivial. Breaking these little habits is the only way you're going to be able to break the big habit. Long after I had stopped smoking, every time I opened the car door and got behind the wheel, I found myself reaching for my shirt pocket, where the cigarette pack used to be. It will take a long time before you finally, once and forever, are finished with cigarettes.

And you absolutely must keep your guard up for the rest of your life. It's been 17 years since I last smoked a cigarette, and although I no longer have the occasional nicotine pangs that were with me for many years after I quit, smoking is something you (and I) could start again with almost no effort. After all is said and done, smoking is one of life's pleasurable experiences whose overwhelming downside is so easily overlooked. Vigilance against backsliding must be ever-present.

A new device has recently come on the market that offers real hope for would be quitters. The electronic cigarette is a Chinese invention that works very well, indeed. Although marketers have been reluctant to tout this product as a 'quit smoking' tool because of a lack of studies on it's success rate, it nevertheless has great potential for quitters who have tried everything else and failed. It looks like a real cigarette, but its actually a tobacco-less battery powered electronic device that creates a water vapor when inhaled/exhaled. The vapor contains a selectable amount of nicotine, which provides the same 'hit' or sensation as a real cigarette. The exhaled vapor looks almost identical to real cigarette smoke. What it lacks is the oder, tars and toxins of real cigarettes.

The quitting is enabled because the user, with each purchase, can gradually dial down the amount of nicotine used, to the point where no nicotine is present. The quitting process is still gradual, and there is still a lot of willpower and self discipline required. But the electronic cigarette appears to offer the best real hope for kicking the real cigarette habit.