Group: 5

Names: Shirley, Vicky, Andrew, Karen, Frank

(Sophomore, Italian)

Ways to Quit Smoking

Nicotine Patches
Nicotine patches are the kings of the nicotine replacement game. They are small, self-adhesive patches that you stick on your skin so that nicotine can enter your bloodstream at a steady rate all day. When you smoke or use other nicotine replacement therapies, you get a “spike” of high nicotine level in your blood, which then lowers until you feel the need to take another dose and top up your nicotine levels. The patch just keeps you at a steady level all the time and gets you accustomed to that without expecting to have occasional high levels. Patches come in different strengths. You go from the strongest one you need to the weakest available, and then stop using them altogether.

    The advantages of nicotine patches are that they provide you with a steady supply of nicotine without your having to think about it. They work in any situation and they provide a strong deterrent to smoking while you are wearing one for hours. The disadvantage is you could suffer symptoms of nicotine overdose such as death after taking one off.  Besides, they can irritate the skin on which they are placed. They also cause you to have weird dreams and not sleep very well if you wear them after going to bed. On the other hand, if you don’t wear them in sleep, it can be a bit rough in the morning before you get a patch on and it starts working. The most serious risk is for those who are dumb. They could likewise suffer symptoms of nicotine overdose while they are smoking at the same time wearing a patch. Shortly after it, the patch is removed.
　

Nicotine Gums
Nicotine gums help you quit by providing you with a source of nicotine apart from smoking. It comes in different strengths (usually 4mg or 2 mg of nicotine per piece), which you choose based on how much you smoke. Nicotine gum, like any nicotine replacement therapy, allows you to deal with the physical component of addiction over a longer period of time with less drastic withdrawal (depression) symptoms.

    The advantages of nicotine gum are that you can take it when you need it (so long as you don’t exceed the amount suggested by the directions), so that you can cut down on your nicotine as quickly or slowly as you want. It is relatively inexpensive. Most important of all, it provides some oral gratification (satisfaction) of its own to replace the cigarettes. The disadvantages are that you can’t chew it while drinking soda or alcoholic beverages, so it’s no good to you in a bar.  It can also make you feel sick if you chew it too fast. Besides, it takes a long time for it to work. If you wait for too long between pieces, you can become extremely irritable while waiting for the piece you’re chewing to affect you.
　

Cutting Down
If you don’t have much confidence on chemical things, natural treatments is your alternative. However, natural treatments tend to alleviate only the psychological addiction (the habit) which is so powerful that it is painful to get rid of.  Cutting down is the natural treatment. It can be out of questionable usefulness as it is usually just a way of putting off quitting for real. However, it’s just difficult to do so if without some kind of plan and resolution to stick to it. Luckily, there is an electronic device marked under the name “Life Sign” which provides just such a plan and helps you to follow it. It is like a pager which you carry around with you at all times. For the first week or so you just carry the device and smoke normally, but pressing a button to inform it whenever you smoke. When you want to start cutting down, it begins to tell you when to smoke by beeping at you. It gradually cuts down the amount you smoke, and it is also purported to break the psychological addiction by removing your usual cues for smoking and replacing them entirely with beeping. It is simple conditioning. The idea is that when the thing stops beeping, you won’t feel inclined to smoke.
　

Cold Turkey    
Quitting cold turkey is extremely difficult because most of us have lives that require us to function as somewhat normal human beings for most of the day. When you are suffering through the initial five days of craziness without nicotine, you will feel more like an angry, rabid bear than a human, and you will not be about as fit company for other humans. Here are some things you can do to make quitting cold turkey difficult as opposed to impossible:

− Smoking until your last day of work or school, and then begin quitting on the weekend (or whatever day you have off).

− Sleep a lot and watch a lot of TV

− Avoid situation that frustrate you.

− Avoid any place where people will be smoking

− Call people whom you know well enough to impose upon and complain to them about how lousy you feel.

− Keep a lot of your favorite non- alcoholic drinks on hand. You will probably feel very thirsty and you will replace it with the oral gratification of cigarettes. In this case, drinking fluids helps to flush the nicotine out of your system faster.

− Have something to do with your hands and/ or your moth. If you like chewing gum, chew it.

Remember that you’re one cigarette way from failure.

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