Part I: Intro
Your Struggle
About NSA
Getting Started
Actualize!
Top 10 reasons
Medical Info
Smoking Denial
Just Once!
Drugs?
More info


Part 2: Prepare
Sign up, PLEASE!
Ready to Quit?
You Must Agree!
Believe In Yourself
Prepare Yourself
Health Issues
Prepare for Battle
Plan A Quit Event
Lets Review
Time to Quit


Part 3: Quit!
Work to Do
Contract Intro
The Contract
NSA Willpower Mantra
Willpower Tools
Your Best Tool
You're On Your Own


Part 4: Survey
Final Survey
Farewell


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Can you rely on drugs to help you quit smoking?

Where did such a huge smoking-cessation drug industry come from anyway? It wasn't long ago when nicotine replacement gum, patches, inhalers and nasal sprays didn't exist. Did you know that the drug companies are even feeding people anti-depressants to help them lose the urge to smoke? To crave things is a natural and normal human urge. To take drugs to make our urges go away is neither.

The smoking-cessation drug industry has become enormous. With the BILLIONS of dollars that society spends on smoking cessation, you would think that more attention should be focused on NATURAL methods of quitting. But that's just not the case. The fact is that quitting smoking without drugs is UNPROFITABLE. And that's not good for the drug companies. DON'T BE FOOLED! You CAN quit smoking naturally. 

Drugs are so easy to use. Just take a pill or put on a patch or chew some gum. What could be simpler? If only life really was that simple. The fact is that a smoking addiction is a combination of physical and psychological dependence. That's what makes breaking the habit so difficult. You have to defend yourself from the addiction from two sides. Break your body's addiction to nicotine and at the same time break your mind's addiction to smoking. Drugs might help somewhat with your short-term physical addiction, but your psychological addiction is much more complicated and takes much longer to address. That is why using drugs alone to cure a smoking addiction is frequently inadequate. Succeeding at quitting smoking with a drug-only approach is more difficult than a program that takes into account the psychological dependence of smoking as well.  

Why don't the drug companies do more to help their customers with the psychological side of quitting? Of course, they want you to think that the use of their drug is all you need, because it makes for better marketing of their drugs! If the drugs are sold with the claim of a simple single solution, you are more likely to purchase the drug. If you fail and return to smoking does it hurt the drug companies in any way? Of course not. In fact, if you return to smoking and THEN try to quit SMOKING again with DRUGs, the drug companies make even more money.  

The psychological side of your smoking addiction is the most difficult to cure!

Isn't using drugs alone to placate your urge to smoke is nothing more than a ineffective CRUTCH? And it is a crutch that will not be there when you need it most. If you break your leg, do you walk with crutches for the rest of your life? Of course not. Crutches are a TEMPORARY FIX. Broken legs don't need long-term solutions. They heal after several weeks. Then you don't need the crutches any longer. Crutches work great for people with broken legs. Treating an addiction is different than treating a broken bone because a broken bone is a purely physical problem. Smoking is a physical AND MENTAL problem. If you quit smoking with drugs and then you get the urge to smoke again after you have stopped taking the drugs, what will you have to lean on? Will you be strong enough to not go back to smoking? Mentally, your state of mind will be no different from what it was when you were a smoker. Smoking cessation drugs will not only NOT help you once you have stopped taking them, they will also give you a false sense of security that will fail you when you really need help and support the most. The urge to smoke a cigarette can come at a time when you least suspect it. It is not uncommon for people to crave cigarettes months or years after quitting.

Nicotine replacement therapy (AKA patch, gum etc) works by feeding your body the nicotine that you would otherwise get from cigarettes. Ordinarily, when you stop smoking, it takes several days to rid your body of nicotine. During this time, your body senses that your nicotine level is below the level that it wants to maintain, so it responds with nicotine cravings. The cravings last until your body has no more nicotine in it. From then on your urge to smoke cigarettes will be mostly habit-based. So how does it make any sense to keep feeding your body nicotine after you have stopped smoking? The longer nicotine is in your system, the longer your body will crave nicotine. Its that simple. You can quit smoking permanently without drugs by using your own natural willpower. We have already started working on that and there is more help to come soon enough.

How did people quit smoking before we had these drugs? Obviously they used their own willpower. The fact is that people will use these modern drug therapies because the drug companies have us and our doctors convinced that we are unable to quit smoking without them.

There are also many serious side effects when using smoking cessation drugs. Read this informative article written by Wanda Hamilton, about the in-effectiveness and dangers of smoking-cessation drugs at Forces.Org and you will learn the truth behind the FDA's approval of these medicines. 

Drugs are the LAZY way to quit smoking. And the lazy way is usually the least effective way.

The idea of taking a pill or sticking on a patch sounds GREAT. Just spend some money at the pharmacy and your addiction will disappear! Well, too bad it never works quite so easily. The drugs only work while you take them. When you aren't taking them, you become abandoned by your therapy. The best way to quit is a way that will stick with you forever. Most smokers can quit on their own without spending a dime by using nothing but WILLPOWER. It is amazing how many people never even give good-old-fashioned willpower a chance. Its even more amazing how many people try smoking cessation drugs and go back to smoking, over and over again because they are duped into thinking that all you need to do is take the drug and your addiction will end.

Why do so many people that use smoking-cessation drugs REPEATEDLY fail at quitting smoking? Simple. All the focus is on the drug, not willpower. The drug may lessen nicotine cravings temporarily, but does not lessen one's psychological dependency on smoking and even prolongs your body's craving for nicotine. And, after you have quit smoking, the urge to smoke continues long after your addiction to nicotine and the use of smoking cessation drugs ends.

What do you do three months down the road when you are with some smokers, (perhaps you've had a few drinks), and someone is blowing smoke in your face? Are you going to run out to the drug store and buy a nicotine patch? Smoking-cessation drugs are not the answer. The focus with drugs is all on the physical and not on the mental. While the drugs may have the ability to soften your nicotine cravings in the first few weeks, once you've stopped taking the drugs, they won't help you at all. 

Flawed Approval Process at the FDA

There are so many questionable aspects of the FDA decision process regarding the approval of drugs that we can't possibly mention them all here, but to just name a few:

1. Many of the studies are funded (and possibly supervised) by the drug companies.
2. In some cases political pressure has been brought to bear on certain approvals.
3. There are known financial ties between FDA panel members and pharmaceutical companies seeking drug approval.
4. Regarding the approval of smoking cessation drugs, "The FDA standard for approval for "efficacy" is that at six weeks the drugs had to show significantly better rates than placebos (nothing) for 28 days of continuous smoking abstinence in test subjects. The fact that at the end of a year, many of those test subjects were smoking again did not enter into the FDA approval process, and the pharmaceutical companies were able to list the quit rates at six weeks on their drug labels." 

"At 48 weeks after randomization, 10 percent of subjects in the nicotine group and 12 percent of those in the placebo group were abstinent." Joseph AM, Antonnucio D, "Lack of Efficacy of Transdermal Nicotine in Smoking Cessation," Letter, New England Journal of Medicine, 341(15), Oct. 7, 1999. In other words, at 48 weeks, those using nothing had a higher quit rate than those using the patch." *

*The Safety and Efficacy of "Smoking Cessation" Drugs, By Wanda Hamilton

Conclusion

You don't need drugs to quit smoking and using drugs to quit is costly, has significant documented side effects and has a high probability of NOT helping you quit long term.  

The NeverSmokeAgain.Com program is committed to helping you quit using your own natural willpower. The NeverSmokeAgain.Com smoking cessation program will help you resist the urge to smoke. You don't need the drugs.

And, if you DON'T use drugs to quit smoking, you will ultimately feel much better about yourself. Take pride in your ability to control your own actions and resist the urge to smoke drug-free. Use your own god-given natural willpower to resist the desire to smoke.

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