What I was missing?

Yes for two years I did not smoke but I could not stay away from the nicotine. My BP reverted to normal so are the blood reports. I walk briskly for 35 minutes at least 6 days a week . Then , one day I was on tour with my family and friends. I forgot to take my nicotine gum with me, when on a day long trip by car. Was missing badly the nicotine kick and was having mild craving but it was not enough that I should ask for a cigarette.

My friend smokes and he was also having a E cigarette with him. He asked me to taste his E cigarette. I tried and ............ WOW  it is as good as cigarette with all its feel , flavor and even the warmth, which I was missing for so long. I came back home and started to research. In the next page I am going to share my experience regarding everything about  E cigarette in Indian context.

Nicotine Replacement Therapy

This is an established method of quitting smoking. There are several accepted methods . Nicotine gum and patches are available in India. I thought of gum. It is not that I have not tasted the nicotine gum earlier. I enjoyed them along with my cigarettes. More kick! But this time I was serious. I read the manual came along with. The gum is available in two strengths 2mg and 4 mg. The dose is dependent on how much you are smoking presently and you nicotine requirement. I used to smoke about 20 cigarettes a day means about one cigarette every half an hour or so.

The first thing I did , I tried to find out How much smoking is absolutely essential for me. I found I cannot leave the morning smoke in toilet, smokes after major meals and before bed. That means about 5 cigarettes.

I bought some 2mg nicotine gum and continued with the 5 cigarettes per day and rest of the day I continued with the gum. What I found, I didn't felt the urge of smoking for at least half an hour after the I had the gum. I was so happy, except I had to fight with my habit of lighting up cigarette each time but I succeeded by not doing so,  Within next week I replaced those 5 cigarettes with 2 mg gum. Believe me I succeeded again. I didn't smoke a single cigarette till then. I am writing it after  2 years!

Though I could not taper off the nicotine gum as suggested but I have quitted  smoking the nasty cigarettes!

A small tip is: Try this when you are away from your normal routine. Preferably when you are on your holidays for at least 7 days. Any pressure from work or, family can revert you back to smoking. So beware and fight continuously with yourself.

Steps for quitting smoking

As I told earlier that, smoking has two distinct part , you need to take into consideration both aspect if you want to succeed in quitting. The habit part is totally a psychological dependence. It has nothing to do with withdrawal symptoms. This part you have to handle with your will power and strong and consistent and honest willingness to quit. If not, everything will fail.

Regarding the nicotine dependence;  it is  of course a systemic issue. It is always better to leave this completely by increasing will power a little bit more. I have seen many who did this. You have to go through the withdrawal symptoms for several months. The reward is, if you succeed, you are free.

I did not have that kind of will power and I hated to suffer those withdrawal symptoms. So I studied about nicotine and tried to find out how bad the nicotine addiction is? What I found is Nicotine, as such is not so bad chemical. In moderate doses, there are no harms and has some therapeutic value. This is helpful in treatment  adult attention deficit disorder and strangely it helps in revascularization of the cardiac vessels.   People on nicotine suffers less with ulcerative colitis.

That means I can continue with nicotine but not the cigarettes. But how?

Why you smoke?

I will not write here the harmful effects of smoking . You all know those things and still you smoke. What I have learned from my research  that the smoking has two distinct parts.

1. Habit: You smoke by habit. It is a reflex kind of thing it has no relation whatsoever with nicotine dependence. The proof for that is, if you are a smoker you might have faced a situation when one cigarette is lighting on your lips and you pulled out another from the packet! This usually happens when you are engrossed in any job with lots of concentration. Why this happen? It is you habit. Even when you are having good concentration of nicotine in your blood, still you are searching for another cigarette!

2. Nicotine dependence: Yes, Nicotine dependence is the toughest dependence to quit. believe it or not, tougher than cocaine dependence. 

Taking into consideration of the above facts, if you want to quit you have to do it scientifically.