How to Quit Smoking Without Nicotine Replacement Therapy

Smoking is bad for you in many ways; all smokers know this but continue to smoke because it's a habit and addiction. Giving up isn't easy, especially if you are going it alone without the help of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). The point of NRT is to stop your body and mind craving a cigarette and nicotine by allowing your body small amounts of nicotine via different channels - straight into your bloodstream via a patch, into your lungs via an inhaler or by chewing gum. NRT is available over-the-counter in most chemists and grocery stores, or through your GP which can work out to be cheaper in the long run. The only problem that I found with NRT was that I soon became addicted to it. I wasn't smoking cigarettes any more but I couldn't function without my patch or chewing gum. To me, this defeated the purpose of stopping smoking as I still had nicotine in my system without the stress-relieving draw of a cigarette. Before long, I was smoking again.

What was required was a way to stop smoking without relying on anything other than my willpower. From previous experience I knew that that it would be harder to stop smoking this way, but I was determined to stop once and for all. The first step was to work out why I wanted to stop smoking, how I was going to prepare and when I was going to quit smoking.

Why do you want to quit smoking?

Everybody has their reasons for wanting to stop smoking. It was the health and money benefits that did it for me. Of course I wanted to cut my chances of developing lung and heart disease in later life, improve the condition of my skin and feel fitter! There was the money side too, I was spending 28p per cigarette. That's £1171.04 per year, but only if the price of cigarettes stays the same for the entire year, which let's face it, doesn't happen.

When are you going to quit smoking?