Success rates For Quitting Smoking

Low. Why are success rates so low?

If you've tried to quit smoking and failed before you will already know the physical withdrawal symptoms, cravings and irritability, etc., are often not the hardest part of quitting.

For most people these symptoms usually peak after 2-3 days without cigarettes and then gradually disappear over the next few weeks.

There are two parts to addiction you’ll need to deal with - physical and psychological dependency.

Physical dependency: nicotine is a stimulant and also a highly addictive drug. Even the good feelings you attribute to smoking, such as improved focus, are really the result of relief from the withdrawal symptoms that come on between cigarettes. Irritability, headaches, poor concentration and cravings are your body's way of asking you for a fix of nicotine. Although not easy to cope with, physical withdrawal symptoms are well documented and there are methods in place to deal with them, such as NRT’s.

Psychological dependency: no matter how few cigarettes you smoked in the beginning, your smoking habit takes on a daily pattern and certain situations begin to trigger the desire for a cigarette. As well as these day-to-day habits, you also begin to associate certain psychological benefits with smoking - for example, as a way to address nerves, anxiety or shyness.

Breaking your emotional attachment to cigarettes can be the hardest part of quitting. This is often not prepared for by people who attempt to quit and this is possibly why success rates for quitting are relatively poor.