[XRchic]

I went cold turkey, no patches, no gum, nothing. Have been off them nearly 2 years.

Patches are a waste of time. They aim to help you with the nicotine addiction. The nicotine withdrawls last a couple of days at the most... so all the patches do is drag that part out...

You need to go cold turkey and get through the first couple of days of nicotine withdrawls - its hard, but if you can get through those two days, then you will be through the worst of the CHEMICAL addiction.

Then you have the mental addiction/habit type thing. That is much easier to deal with if you are not trying to get through the chemical addiction, ie with patches. One thing at a time...

The habit thing takes a while, depending on the person. And no patch or gum will help you with that. The habit takes willpower and and resistance, that is all. And it is much easier if you are not fighting nicotine withdrawls...

Patches are ok if you dont rely on them I guess but its a lot of money to spend to draw out something that should be essentially done inside of a week...

I recommened going cold turkey and getting the nicotine withdrawls out the way, then focus on the habit breaking over weeks or even months - bearing in mind it will never go away completely.

Dont shelter yourself either... go to pubs if you have to, because at some point you will have to face smokers, and smokey places... just have to deal with it.

Thats my advice (ex nurse).

Jac