Cigarettes: How to Quit Smoking and Never Smoke Again

Nov 27, 2010
Jennifer Silva

Quitting smoking isn't impossible, it's just hard - Geruwen

Quit smoking cigarettes and learn why nicotine gum and electronic cigarettes rarely work. Learn what you need to kick your addiction.

Learning how to successfully quit smoking can be tough. If you're like most smokers, you've tried to stop smoking cigarettes a dozen times and nothing's worked. Maybe you even tried electronic cigarettes and nicotine gum to quit, and you did what "they" told you but it didn't matter. Or maybe you've convinced yourself that you'll stop when you're ready, and that "the time just isn't right" now.

Well, with cigarette prices hovering around $5 a pack, if any time were the right time to stop, it's now. And you can: You just need to arm yourself with the right information and the right smoking cessation aids.

Quit Smoking By Understanding Nicotine Addiction

If you're trying to quit, it's important to understand how the brain becomes addicted to nicotine. Why? Because if you don't, you will keep trying to stop smoking in ways that just make it harder for you to succeed. There's a reason most smoking cessation tools don't work, and it has a lot to do with something called associative learning and how nicotine use affects the brain.

When someone takes an addictive drug (in this case nicotine), a few things happen:

There's a surge of the chemical dopamine that the user's brain interprets as pleasure.
The user's brain links the activity that produced that pleasure (smoking, for instance) with the feeling of pleasure itself (that dopamine/nicotine rush). In other words, it learns to associate that activity with feeling good. The more the activity is repeated (in other words, the more someone smokes), the stronger the association the brain creates.
At some point, after continued use of the drug, the user's body begins to interpret the drug as necessary and life-sustaining, like food and water.
Once addicted, the user's body will essentially panic any time there is an inadequate amount of the drug in its system. To get the user to take the drug and do what it sees as necessary for survival, the brain will start using cravings.

Now here's the thing to understand about cravings (and where associative learning comes in): Most cravings are triggered by situational, emotional and geographical circumstances that the brain has learned to associate with drug consumption. For instance, a smoker's brain doesn't just associate the physical act of smoking with getting nicotine, it also associates the things that the smoker does and where the smoker is while smoking with getting high too. If part of a user's morning ritual is having a cup of coffee and a cigarette in the morning, then just having that morning coffee is going to trigger a nicotine craving. The same goes for any other activity that a user does while smoking, and for places the user is when smoking. Each and every one of those physical activities is now associated with smoking and can potentially trigger a nicotine craving. Worse yet, the brain will actually alter itself to make it harder for a user to control those impulses and cravings. Yes, a user's brain actually works against him when the user is trying to quit.

How Replacement Therapy and Smoking Cessation Aids Do (and Don't) Work

There are a couple of reasons that many smoking cessation aids don't effectively help smokers quit:

Many smoking cessation tools don't break the associations that have been created between an activity and the chemical/drug rush. Instead, they just substitute one activity for another (usually smokeless) one. For instance, they substitute chewing nicotine gum or using a nasal inhaler for smoking cigarettes.
Most smoking cessation aids don't teach users how to weaken the associations made between everyday physical activities and drug consumption. Instead, most smoking cessation programs advise users to avoid all the activities that trigger cravings. To quit for good, users need to learn how to cope with the (seemingly endless) waves of cravings that withdrawal produces.
They don't teach users how addiction works and how to avoid needless pitfalls when quitting smoking. Without understanding how the addicted brain operates and how cravings are created and reinforced, most smokers will eventually just replace the old habit with a new one, or rationalize themselves back into smoking.

How to Properly Use Smoking Cessation Aids to Stop Smoking

Most addictions can't be quit cold turkey so, if you've tried and failed, now is not the time to give up. It's also not the time to beat yourself up. Instead, learn from smokers who've succeeded in quitting smoking and do what they did to increase your chances of success:

Use a smoking cessation aid that either a) passively introduces nicotine into the bloodstream (like a skin patch) and then slowly decreases the amount of nicotine the body absorbs or b) blocks or lessens nicotine cravings by working with brain chemistry (like smoking cessation medicines).
While using the aid, start introducing activities you used to do while smoking. This will trigger cravings but each time you do the activity and don't smoke, you will chip away at the association your brain has made between the activity and the drug. As you continue to do so, you will lessen the severity of the cravings and increase your ability to resist them. Eventually (and it could be months or years after your quit date), your cravings will completely disappear. The goal is to eventually wean yourself from the smoking cessation aid as well, but not until you can successfully manage your cravings.
Create a support network. The first few weeks of quitting smoking are incredibly hard for some people. By having a go-to support network of people whom you can confide in when you need to talk and walk through cravings, you'll increase your chances of success. Just make sure that your support network is as committed to your stopping smoking as you are. A solid support network is vital because users are working with diminished impulse control and often need outside input to help them resist their cravings.

Understanding Addiction: Five Tips to Quit Smoking with the Right Nicotine Replacement Aids

Although addiction is a physical phenomenon, there's still a lot of mind over matter to it. If you're trying to quit, consider the following:

Recognize that cravings are temporary and short lived. As you continue to work through them without smoking, they will lessen in occurrence and severity.
Recognize that emotional triggers can create especially acute cravings, particularly in stressful circumstances. If you experience a particularly painful or stressful event, your brain will trigger nicotine cravings because it associates nicotine with relaxation. Because stressful events can come out of nowhere, these cravings can too. And, although they may feel particularly severe, they too will pass.
If you absolutely must cheat, try to only take a puff or two of a cigarette a day and then (and this is key) save that same cigarette for the next time you cheat. The longer you have that cigarette, the worse it will taste and the less you'll want to smoke it, so try to make a cigarette last for two weeks (or longer).
Don't try to tackle all of your smoking triggers at once. Instead, while using a smoking cessation aid that can help you manage your cravings, purposefully target particular triggers and work through them, focusing on one or two triggers at a time.
Recognize that your brain is working against you. Not only is your brain going to try and convince you that "just one cigarette" isn't that big of a deal, it's going to try and manipulate you in myriad other ways. Don't fall for it.

If you liked this, you may also like:

Sources:

The National Institute on Drug Abuse. Drugs and the Brain, (November 27, 2010)

Current Drug Abuse Reviews (2008,1). Associative Learning, the Hippocampus, and Nicotine Addiction, Jennifer A. Davis and Thomas J. Gould, (November 24, 2010)

HBO: Addiction. Addiction and the Brain's Pleasure Pathway: Beyond Willpower, Nora D. Volkow, M.D., (November 27, 2010)

HelpGuide.org. How to Quit Smoking, (November 27, 2010)

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Smoking and Tobacco Use, (November 27, 2010)