Fellow ex-smoker, quit 8 years ago after smoking 20. Started at age 12 and at the end was at a pack and a half to two a day. Quit cold turkey with the help of a rehab place (yes I found one called Hazelden that was giving financial help to those who wanted to do the smoking cessation program but couldn’t afford the thousands it was at normal price.)
It was for seven days and I came out a depressed human being with anxiety issues lol. Went to my doc and he prescribed a years worth of refills of the Nicotine gum. THAT is how I got hooked and chew it religiously to this day. It was made to be used for only 3 months, as you probably know.
Anyways, I do have to take an occasional Xanax at bedtime because of anxiety issues and always used it very sparingly because I did not want to become too reliant on it. Even then it was scary when I ran out and couldn’t sleep all night only because I KNEW I was out lol. The gals in my dr’s office aren’t too quick on getting refill requests responded to, they actually put a note up in the office now that it could take up to 72 hours.
My doc only prescribes me 20 at a time, low dose, with no refills (have to have the pharmacy request it.) I find it a comfort just to know it’s there if I need it.
I did not know nicotine gum was 3 months only.
I only used one pack of it because at the time it was 50$ a box, so I could not afford another box. I think it definitely helped me through the initial week with no cigs.
I knew another gentleman at the time who had tried hypnosis, lasers of some sort, pretty much every gimmick there was with no success. However, later in his life he did quit on his own. But yep I still chew about a pack of gum each week these days.
As far as Xanax goes, the way I got addicted to it was at the time I was just straight abusing it like a complete frickin’ idiot.
I had no idea what the consequence of daily use was, and I had access to a near limitless amount. Large doses, Xanbars, which are 2mg each, which is a significant amount of the drug.
Of course, the more I abused it daily, the less the drug affected me in terms of getting me high, so I took more of it.
Then one day I was unable to resupply. about 2 days after that, I hallucinated for 3 months straight. No sleep for 3 months, not one minute. And that was just the least of what happened to me in that 3 months.
Needless to say, when you are taking that drug every day, to stop taking it cold turkey is to walk directly into Hell, and it can kill you.
However, if you only take it one pill at a time as needed for anxiety, which generally is the instruction, you will not suppress your CNS in such a way that to stop taking it causes CNS rebound syndrome, which is the worst thing in this world I have ever experienced.
Never, ever take it on a daily basis for any reason at all.