by K. M. Crowley

Created on: March 15, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

As someone who smoked heavily for 14 years, I'm well aware of the health risks involved as well as the societal ones. Knowing these things, over the years I've tried almost every "aid" available on the market in an attempt to beat the habit.

I've tried, and will share my experience with each of the following: nicotine patches, nicotine gum, cutting back gradually, cold turkey, Zyban pills, herbal cigarettes, plastic fake cigarettes, chewing tobacco, even the very bad idea of smoking cigars instead!

Here comes a long one, but I hope perhaps it will help you succeed in quitting.

First I'll tell you the withdrawal symptoms you may experience. Knowing your personal worst of these will help you choose a technique to quit. Everyone is different, so everyone experiences these symptoms on different levels, meaning some will be worse than others. The symptoms include EXTREME irritability (and when I say extreme, I mean you really want to throw a temper tantrum every two seconds!), sweating, nervousness, dry mouth, depression or sadness, weight gain from snacking like crazy, overeating to occupy the mouth and hands, moderate to severe insomnia and headache.

Nicotine Gum - I found that when I was smoking heavily, as in a pack a day, the gum DID take the edge off the irritability factor a little bit and it kept my mouth occupied so I wasn't snacking, but other than that it wasn't very effective: I still couldn't stop thinking about having a cigarette, and very quickly gave in the to cravings. However after cutting down to about five smokes per day, the gum helped a lot to take the place of cigarettes. Any time I started to feel irritated and antsy, I'd chew a piece and it helped. It did not help with insomnia, because I wasn't willing to risk going to bed with gum in my mouth. The depression made itself at home too, but after four days it was gone. Something to remember about the gum is that it isn't meant to be chewed like ordinary gum - read the instructions. If you chomp on it like normal chewing gum, it makes your mouth burn.

Nicotine Patch - For heavy AND light smoking, this worked very well. I almost forgot about the cravings completely, I wasn't irritable, no headaches, no dry mouth, and the insomnia wasn't very bad. I still wanted to snack like crazy on the patch, but it took away pretty much all the other symptoms. When you put the patch on your skin, again, read the instructions. Expect it to itch for a few minutes, and don't be surprised if you have very vivid dreams

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