First of all, I believe anyone with any knowledge of smoking understands when you quit smoking, you are dealing with two addictions, the physical and the psychological.
I don't believe nicotine is required to live. If it were, everyone would need to use it and the people who had used it for decades would have never been able to put smoking down. That's not to say it doesn't have some valuable medical uses.
I believe the best way to let go of smoking is to eliminate one of the addictions so you can then deal separately with the other.
Secondly, I used the patch so I'm not against NRT's
I simply want you to understand the possibility of what you may get yourself into so you are informed and can identify a direction before it becomes a problem.
Breaking The Reward Cycle At The Beginning
The problem I have with the establishment is their lack of instruction on getting off the NRT's.
Their lack of even a mention in their advertising that people can develop a psychological (and not just a physical) addiction to them in the same way over time that the ritual of smoking has.
I just can't make it more simple than saying every animals most primal urge is to feel good. Who wants to sleep in the rain when there's a cave to sleep in?
Pavlov's dogs>You can't get more basic than that. Nicotine releases dopamine. Dopamine makes you feel good.
With the preceding in mind:
If I were going to recommend an NRT, would recommend the patch. Why? Because you have no control over the dosage. You have to believe it's doing what it is supposed to instead of satisfying the thought of smoking with a self dosing NRT. To me, using the patch breaks the reward cycle but, you're still getting the nicotine. Why would you believe in it? Because you base the dosage on the nicotine you were receiving as a smoker before you quit.
I would guess that many people using multiple NRT's are getting MORE nicotine than when they smoked. Wouldn't that lead to a psychological addiction? Wouldn't that be substituting the reward cycle in a different way instead of changing it so you could go in a different direction with your thoughts and your life?
Why would using more nicotine than you got as a smoker get you out of the reward cycle? I believe this should be common sense.
Take control and listen to your body. Yes, it's going to take some thinking instead of believing the NRT is going to quit for you.
IT DOESN'T. IT CAN'T. IT WONT.
It's in the best interest of the manufacturers
that you use them as long as possible.
