Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) has been around a long time, with varying degrees of success. Most agree that NRT will double a person's chance of quitting over going cold turkey alone. But the outcomes, defined as smoking cessation, are still pretty small.
A recent study looked at the affect NRT had on smoking reduction and temporary abstinence in England. The researchers wanted to see if NRT use could predict smoking cessation attempts. I'm not really sure why they were asking this question and the end result of the study is not what I find important.
Rather, the scientists state that NRT was associated with an overall smoking reduction of about two cigarettes per day. They also found that people who used NRT were more likely to try to quit smoking that someone who did not use it - which I think is a patently obvious observation that didn't require a study. But that's just my two cents.
Anyway, I wanted to focus on this 2 cigarette per day reduction. Is it just me or does that seem kind of small? Yeah, that's what I thought. But I think I know why it is so small.
Since most NRT is available without a prescription, most people who want to quit can just go online or to a local store and buy nicotine gum or whatever. Lets say a guy wants to quit, but he's not completely sure about how to go through it. More than likely, he's heard about NRT and will probably "try" some nicotine gum or the patch. Hey, you don't need a script and nobody needs to know what you're doing. It's kind of a covert quit attempt. No real planning, no thinking about it, just try and see what happens.
In this scenario, smoking cessation success may be difficult to achieve. The biggest mistake people make is failing to plan a quit attempt. When you approach a serious addiction, which lets face it, nicotine is, you must be serious in your desire to quit. Testing the waters and trying things out are, in the end, not worth the trouble.
I've heard some people using nicotine gum for over a year. Now I don't know if they were addicted to nicotine gum or just felt the need to keep trying, but planning is the answer. So I believe these people in the study were not serious about quitting, rather they were just experimenting with NRT to see if it would magically take their nicotine addiction away. Obviously, it doesn't seem to work that way.
