Quit Smoking Pills

A lot of people out there who are hooked on smoking cigarettes are looking for a quick and easy fix; a way to help them quit smoking without too much hassle.  Pills are quick and easy and convenient and we seem to have them for just about every other ailment under the sun, so why not for quitting smoking?  Therefore, you'll find the market has plenty of quit smoking pills that claim to be able to help you quit.

Now there are actually 2 distinct categories of quit smoking pills and we will consider them separately.  The first category are the prescription based pills that have been developed by drug companies that are targeted to help people to quit smoking.  Examples of these pills would be things such as Zyban or Chantix.  Generally you would get a prescription from your doctor for these and then start taking them before you even quit smoking.  In either case, the medication is supposed to make it easier to quit, and both pills have been proven to show at least some degree of success in helping people quit in controlled studies. 

One of the problems with taking prescription medications however is in the side effects.  Both medications can have some pretty pronounced side effects, and in some cases these side effects can be psychological in nature.  So you would definitely want to discuss this possibility with your doctor before taking either of these medications and also consider the alternatives.

Now there is an alternative if you still want a quit smoking pill but do not want to go the precription medication route: you could try over the counter herbal pills.  I am in the unique position in that I have actually tried both prescription medication as well as herbal pills to help quit smoking and so I have a balanced perspective.  To be honest neither one worked for me and this is especially true of the herbal pills.  At least with the prescription medication I could notice that I really did not want to smoke as badly and the cigarettes that I did smoke in fact tasted much worse.  But the herbal pills that I tried really did not do a thing for me and I could notice no effect at all as far as the quitting smoking went.  One set of herbal pills that I tried were specifically supposed to soothe the withdrawal symptoms after you quit smoking, and I can confidently say that those pills did nothing to live up to their promise. 

Now I am not knocking herbal supplements, I am just saying that they did not help me at all in my quest to quit smoking.  I tried 2 different kinds and neither one had any effect for me.  The precription medication did have a noticeable effect and made me want to smoke less, but ultimately I failed to quit when taking the medication.  Later on I finally managed to quit smoking cold turkey and that has been several years ago now.

Looking back at my own experience with quitting, I can see that when I was searching for a magic pill to help me quit, what I really wanted was a way to quit without any pain or discomfort whatsoever. I was looking for a magic pill that did not exist. I wanted to quit smoking, but I did not want to put in the work and effort required to do so. This was not realistic and that is why there really was no stop smoking pill out there that could have helped me at the time.

Now later on you will notice that I got serious about quitting and actually quit cold turkey and made it stick. That was almost 4 years ago now and I have not had a cigarette since. Now think about this: had I actually used a pill when I tried to quit then, I would probably be giving all of the credit to that pill that "helped me quit." In fact what had happened at the time was that I finally got serious enough to quit for good.

This phenomenon plays itself out over and over again. People who finally quit by using the Nicotine patch believe that it actually was the ultimate answer for them and is what really helped them to quit finally. In fact, smoking is such a powerful addiction that all of these cures and stop smoking aids on the market actually matter very little. None of them can really help you unless you are extremely determined to stop no matter what. Realize that quitting smoking without any pain or discomfort is going to make it much, much easier to return to smoking, whereas going through a nasty withdrawal will actually strengthen your resolve to stay smoke free in the long run. Sure there are various aids out there that can "help" you to quit smoking, but all of them represent a trade off that make it so that it is easier to return to smoking some day.