What’s the most effective way to quit smoking for good?
If you’ve decided to quit smoking, congratulations! This is the single best thing you can do to safeguard your health. What’s more, healing literally starts within minutes of quitting.
Now the question is how to go about breaking your nicotine addiction. Is it better to quit smoking cold turkey or gradually?
There’s some dramatic appeal to quitting cold turkey — going from your usual cigarette consumption to no nicotine at all. It may seem like a faster way to becoming smoke-free than gradually weaning off cigarettes.
But going cold turkey — quitting abruptly without help — is harder, and lowers your long-term odds of quitting, says Dr. Hilary Tindle, a physician-scientist and founding director of the Vanderbilt Center for Tobacco, Addictions and Lifestyle.
Yes, some people quit smoking this way, so it’s not impossible. But “our first recommendation is not cold turkey,” Tindle said. Studies have found that people are two to three times more likely to be smoke-free a year after their quit date with a combination of counseling and medications, compared with those who don’t use those tools.
Choosing a quit date
The key first step on your way to quitting is choosing a quit date, and sticking to it.
One tactic, the “cut down to quit” method, is to gradually cut back. Using this strategy, you cut down on the number of cigarettes smoked each day for a certain period of time before your quit date.
Another strategy is to smoke as usual, until you stop on the quit date, using only nicotine replacement – no cigarettes – from that point on.
Either way, it’s important to support your effort with both counseling and medication. Counseling helps you break the psychological aspects of smoking, while medication works on the underlying biology. They work hand in hand toward your success.
Medications: Patch, gum, lozenges and prescriptions
Many people find that the easiest (or perhaps the least difficult) way to quit is weaning off cigarettes while using some kind of counseling or support group, plus nicotine replacement medications.
The most common of these medications are nicotine replacement products, including over-the-counter ones such as the patch, gum and lozenges.
Nicotine replacement medications soften the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. When people stop smoking, they typically feel the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal: irritability, anxiety, depression, increased appetite and more. The patch, gum or lozenges are especially helpful in easing these symptoms when a long-acting patch is combined with short-acting gum or lozenges.
Nicotine replacement is typically used for two to three months, which is about the time it takes your brain chemistry to normalize after quitting smoking. Many people gradually reduce the medication dose over this period.
Research shows that the patch, gum or lozenges can also be used safely while you are cutting down to quit, but this is best done with the help of your doctor or another health care provider familiar with treating smoking.
There are prescription medications designed to help people quit, too; ask your doctor about these. They are varenicline (also called Chantix) and bupropion (also called Zyban or Wellbutrin).
Use all the tools
Counseling can come from your doctor, a dedicated tobacco treatment counselor, or the free Tennessee Tobacco QuitLine (1-800-QUITNOW). Most state quit lines also offer free medication. If you prefer a digital counselor, check out the National Cancer Institute’s website, Smokefree.gov, which offers free texting and quit apps for iPhone or android.
Best chance for success
Nicotine replacement, plus counseling or a support group, together give you your best chances of quitting.
Perseverance is important, too! The average person tries to quit smoking five times or more before finally breaking a nicotine addiction. So if you give in to an urge to smoke partway through your quit attempt, forgive yourself, and keep trying.
And if going cold turkey, especially without meds, is not going well, “give yourself a break,” Tindle advises. “Help is here to quit smoking. Use the tools available and eventually you will succeed!”
The importance of lung screening
Early detection of lung cancer is the most powerful way to reduce the risk of illness or death from this disease. A lung screening CT scan can find lung cancer before symptoms develop and the cancer spreads. Vanderbilt’s Lung Cancer Screening Program offers yearly lung screening computed tomography (CT) scans for patients who are at high risk of lung cancer because of age and/or smoking history.
