Stop Smoking with Nicotine Replacement Therapy – Fact or Fiction?

There are a multitude of theories and products that are supposed to help you stop smoking. Nicotine replacement therapy seems to be highly regarded in some circles – but is it really effective?

Let’s be honest here: Nicotine is addictive, and smoking is an addiction. Smokers use cigarettes as a quick “fix” (as addicts call it) for the body’s demand for more.

The pharmaceutical industry would have you believe that nicotine replacement therapy, or NRT, represents an efficient way to stop smoking. But if you look at some of the products’ prices, you start wondering…

The fact of the matter is that NRT simply adds more nicotine to your system. Sure, it bypasses the lungs, so it will probably reduce the risk of lung cancer – for as long as you use it.

BUT…

The fact of the matter is that it simply extends the addiction. As such, NRT users show a poor long term success rate (most of them re-start smoking within 6 to 12 months). Just take a look at people who have tried to quit using gum or patches, and see how many of them either smoke again, or are still using the product long after they were supposed to have been free from their addiction.

All that happens is that the dependency shifts from cigarettes to patches or chewing gum. As soon as you stop using them, the cravings simply return, and you either have to start smoking again, or you have to get more gum or patches.

So…

The customer simply moves on from the tobacco industry to the pharmaceutical industry. He or she is likely to spend the same amount of money, and in some cases even more than before.

Instead of being addicted to tobacco, he or she ends up addicted to nicotine replacement products…

Still addicted to nicotine.

The sad fact is that many people are so desperate to break free from smoking that they will try anything, and even pay any price for any product that will help them to quit.

Nicotine replacement therapy is supposed to be a “crutch” that helps you move on from smoking cigarettes to leading a healthy life. Instead, many people find that they either end up smoking again, or simply end up being dependent on the NRT product forever.

The reality is that, while “replacement therapy” might work for some addictions, it only works where the addict has no access to the substance, and a doctor controls the dosage – which is slowly diminished.

To give an addict unlimited access to replacement therapy cannot work – because if you had the will power to cut down on your replacement therapy product over time, you would have had the will power to cut down on your cigarettes over time as well, and stop smoking on your own.

It’s a matter of common sense.