[knarf]

You are SO right.

I've quit a dozen times ... sometimes a few days, once about 8 months .. and I've succombed for some idiot reason or another and get hooked immediately all over again.

The scriptural, "O miserable wretch that I am .. " blares in my prayers.

[Recon Dad]

I finally quit after many many tries. A friend of mine, a doctor put me on CATAPRES TTS 1. It comes in a patch and has no nicotine in it. You get 4 patches changing them once a week for a month. In a few days after you start the patch that awful physical desire to have a smoke is gone. By the end of the month nicotine is out of your system. For the next 10 to 11 months it's all mental.
Catpres is a blood pressure medicine, very mild and even if you have low blood pressure it won't hurt you.
The reason you don't hear about this as a way out of smoking is there's little money in it compared to the Nicotine gums and other crap.
It worked for me, good luck.

[rogue yam]

Don’t count yourself out. I “quit” several times for varying lengths of time before I actually quit. Then one time I made up my mind, quit cold turkey, vowed never to again touch a cigarette, and now after about ten years I haven’t and know I never will. I have absolutely no desire to smoke. Can’t imagine it, really. No patches or program or anything. I just made up my mind and eventually my body followed.

[Adder]

Chantix.

Shuts off the nicotine receptors in the brain and takes care of the physical cravings. That was the reason I couldn’t stop...it wasn’t the “habit” aspect...it was physical.

Some folks can’t take it but it a miracle. I smoked for 40 yrs. Finally got Chantix and left cigs behind 3 years ago and have not looked back. Some RARE cravings sometimes come but they are easily batted away.

[MsLady]

I quit several times. Finally quit cold turkey in 1982. That was seriously hard and for some reason harder then the other few times I’d tried to quit. Every once in a while after, I’d actually have a nightmare that I was smoking again. I knew that if I had one cigarette I’d be hooked again. The cravings stopped all together about 10 or so years ago. Until then I would have an occasional craving.