How to Quit Smoking

The very idea that you need a way, method, technique, or tool to quit smoking is odd. If you want to quit smoking, or quit doing anything, surely, you just quit!

Of course it’s not so simple in the case of smoking, and I’m only too well aware that many smokers have genuine difficulty in quitting.

A whole industry has grown up of quit-smoking aids, from nicotine patches and gum, e-cigarettes, and prescription drugs, to say nothing of gimmicks like hypnosis, laser treatment, magnets in your ears, coconut oil, and so on.

All these approaches offer techniques of one sort of another; none offers understanding.

The Symonds Method (the word ‘method’ is used merely for convenience) on the other hand is based on helping smokers to understand and to demonstrate to themselves why they really smoke and why quitting seems so hard; then it will be easy.

WHO’s Ambition for Smokers to ‘Commit to Quit’

The WHO, bless their cotton socks, in December 2020 launched a ‘year-long global campaign for World No Tobacco Day 2021 – “Commit to Quit” ’ and as part of this splendid effort we are informed that ‘The campaign will support at least 100 million people as they try to give up tobacco…’. Come now, Dr Symonds, surely not [...]

Gabriel Symonds2022-12-05T08:28:12+00:007 March 2021|Categories: Best Ways to Quit Smoking, How to Quit Smoking, WHO|

How to Solve the Smoking Problem

It is a truth that appears not to be universally acknowledged that in order to stop doing something you have to start doing it first. People are not born smokers. Public health organisations are much exercised to appeal for funding to run stop smoking clinics. They have a modest success with smokers who seek their help in supporting [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-07-06T08:20:49+00:008 August 2019|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Popular Blog, Quit Smoking Services, Tobacco Control|

The Tear-Jerker Way To Quit Smoking

A recently released short film, produced by a number of local health authorities in the north of England, is titled ‘Don’t be the 1’. This is an admonition not to be the one of the one-in-two smokers who will die from a smoking-related illness. It made me feel quite angry—not with the makers of the film I hasten [...]

Gabriel Symonds2020-12-14T23:47:36+00:0025 September 2018|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Reasons to Quit Smoking|

How E-Cigarettes Make You Feel Bad

It seems these days everyone is jumping on the e-cigarette bandwagon—the debate is swirling back and forth. Are e-cigarettes harmful or good for smokers? If they’re harmful, how much less so than smoking? Should vaping be permitted/banned everywhere/on public transport/in classrooms/hospitals? Should they be regulated, and if so, how and how much? As an example of this of [...]

Gabriel Symonds2022-08-20T05:37:42+00:0021 September 2018|Categories: E-Cigarettes, How to Quit Smoking, Vaping|

Nicotine Patches for Nicotine Addiction

It’s an unfortunate fact that many smokers, although they dislike smoking and wish they didn’t have to do it, find the prospect of quitting very difficult. Therefore it’s understandable that they seek help in how to stop smoking, including using nicotine patches . In theory, all that smokers need to do is to stub out their last cigarette [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-01-06T00:50:52+00:006 June 2018|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Nicotine Addiction, Nicotine Patches|

The Hard Way to Quit Smoking – Part II

The august American Cancer Society, in its efforts to scare people into quitting smoking, sponsors an annual event in November that they call the Great American Smokeout. They show a film titled ‘Smoking Cessation—3 Steps to Quitting’. (The word ‘Cessation’ is redundant.) The object indeed seems to be to get smokers to quit through fear: the word ‘cancer’ [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-04-27T00:51:52+00:0027 November 2017|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Nicotine Addiction|

Mrs May to the Rescue!

My blog Mrs May – Save Us! was a critique that I wrote in January 2017 of an appeal by a group of 1000 doctors to the UK Prime Minister and Health Secretary to publish a new Tobacco Control Plan: https://www.nicotinemonkey.com/mrs-may-save-us/ The government did so, in rather a hurry it seems, in July 2017. The details are set [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-04-19T11:43:39+00:0020 August 2017|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Nicotine Replacement Therapy, Smoking Harm Reduction|

How Addicted Are You?

A little-known advantage of not smoking In the NHS Smokefree website there’s a section headed ‘Addiction test’. The purpose of this is to find out how dependent you are on nicotine. The underlying concept, however, is wrong. If you’re addicted to nicotine that sufficiently defines your problem. The implication that there are degrees of addiction is unfounded and [...]

Gabriel Symonds2018-07-23T22:19:07+00:0016 August 2017|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Nicotine Addiction|

Smoking Cessation and Humour

Healthline does it again. They put up a website in 2014 entitled ‘29 Things Only a Person Who’s Quitting Smoking Would Understand’. Apart from the crudity and smugness of the writing, it’s another example of everything that’s wrong with the orthodox approach to the smoking problem. For a start, the very idea of ‘quitting smoking’ implies it’s a [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-12-05T00:15:26+00:0011 June 2017|Categories: Benefits of quitting smoking, How to Quit Smoking|

What the ’Eck! Journalism or Medical Advice?

My attention was drawn recently to a badly written ‘Ezine’ article from 2010 by the well-named so-called expert author Hayden Eck with the confusing title ‘Do Not Give Up – Smoking Cessation is Possible’. At first glance it looks as if he’s telling you not to give up smoking, but he means you should not give up on [...]

Gabriel Symonds2020-06-30T01:48:43+00:001 May 2017|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Nicotine Addiction|

The Rubbish Way to Stop Smoking

If you were new to the piano and wanted to play Bach’s C major prelude you would need to practise. (There are YouTube videos showing how to do this.) But if you decided to give up learning this wonderful piece, which would be a pity, all you would have to do is close the piano and walk away; [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-01-17T00:54:14+00:009 April 2017|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Nicotine Addiction|

How Not to Stop Smoking – Part III

In the Tobacco Control Industry three unhelpful concepts regularly crop up in learned articles in scholarly journals. Or scholarly articles in learned journals. Trying to give up This is the idea that is derived from the common response people give if asked whether they smoke. If they do, they're likely to say, ‘Yes—but I’m trying to give up.’ [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-03-29T00:29:25+00:0022 January 2017|Categories: How to Quit Smoking|

Smoking Withdrawal Symptoms and Readiness to Quit

What are nicotine withdrawal symptoms? I have done a survey of the records of the last one hundred patients I treated for smoking cessation in face-to-face sessions. These records contain near-verbatim accounts of what patients say in reply to open-ended questions, since I have found this is the best way to gain an understanding of what is going [...]

Gabriel Symonds2018-06-14T07:43:32+00:003 January 2017|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Smoking Withdrawal Symptoms|

The Dangers of Stopping Smoking

I've said it before and I’ll say it again: almost everything that most people believe about smoking is wrong. Browsing the internet will reveal plenty of examples. Here's one I came across recently. It’s a YouTube video by a certain Dr Eric Berg. He’s not a doctor in the usual sense of the word but a chiropractor. Chiropractic [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-11-26T08:01:36+00:0028 December 2016|Categories: How to Quit Smoking|

The Helpful Guide to Quitting Smoking

As an example of everything that’s wrong with the orthodox approach to smoking cessation we need look no further than an online feature from Helpguide.org called How to Quit Smoking – A Guide to Kicking the Habit for Good. This is wrong from the very first word. You don’t need a how-to guide to quitting smoking. You just [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-05-08T02:47:45+00:0019 December 2016|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Nicotine Patches, Nicotine Replacement Therapy|

E-Cigarettes: a Public Health Disaster Waiting to Happen?

Heavy smog in Piccadilly Circus, London, December 1952. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Do you know what a pea-souper is? You don’t really want to know, at least not at first-hand. It was the humorous name given to an decidedly unfunny atmospheric condition, not uncommon in the winter months in London in the nineteenth century [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-10-20T00:23:54+00:007 December 2016|Categories: E-Cigarettes, How to Quit Smoking, Vaping|

E-Cigarettes May Be Hazardous To Your Health

Is this the beginning of the end for ENDS? The acronym – much medical writing is peppered with annoying non-standard abbreviations of this sort – means Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems. These drug-delivery devices (for that is what they are) were in the spotlight at a conference in India of the FCTC (there we go again) which means the [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-04-09T02:53:39+00:001 December 2016|Categories: E-Cigarettes, How to Quit Smoking, Nicotine Replacement Therapy, Smoking Alternatives|

The Art of Medicine and Stopping Smoking

The distinguished medical journal, The Lancet, in June 2016 reported the results of a huge multinational collaborative effort to investigate the risks of psychiatric side-effects of two drugs used in smoking cessation: varenicline (Champix®) and bupropion (Zyban®); no evidence of increased harm was found compared with nicotine patches and placebo (dummy) treatments. This must have been good news [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-11-19T01:00:41+00:0011 November 2016|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Nicotine Patches|

E-Cigarettes and the Charity Commission

Not everyone is happy about e-cigarettes – and it’s not just I. The BBC online news (5 November 2016) carries a report that Dr Phil Banfied, chairman of the British Medical Association's Welsh council, wants to see proof of the safety of e-cigarettes. To emphasize the need for caution with these new drug (nicotine) delivery devices, he reminded [...]

Gabriel Symonds2018-06-14T00:39:39+00:006 November 2016|Categories: E-Cigarettes, How to Quit Smoking|

Chewing the Wall and Climbing the Carpet

In the best tradition of the orthodox approach to smoking cessation, this year’s vintage of the quaintly named Stoptober scheme, produced by NHS England, has just finished. At least it’s an improvement on the previous two versions. Last year’s seemed intended to encourage smokers to quit through humour. Is it a laughing matter? The idea of Stoptober is [...]

Gabriel Symonds2019-05-15T10:35:59+00:0029 October 2016|Categories: How to Quit Smoking|

Why NRT Makes it Harder to Stop Smoking

NRT, let me remind you, means so-called nicotine replacement therapy. Why ‘so-called’? Because nicotine is not a replacement for anything, nor is nicotine being replaced with something, so the name is wrong. It really means cigarette replacement but could equally well and more accurately be called nicotine maintenance therapy (NMT). The idea is that, since stopping smoking is [...]

Gabriel Symonds2022-12-18T01:26:50+00:0019 October 2016|Categories: E-Cigarettes, How to Quit Smoking, Nicotine gum, Nicotine Patches|

Stopping Smoking is its Own Reward

In my research on smoking I recently came across a book and a website with the following titles: ‘Smoke-free in 30 days’ and ‘STOP SMOKING! in 28 days’, respectively. Here’s a quote from the latter: ‘Getting hooked doesn’t happen overnight and getting unhooked is best done in the same way: over a period of several days.’ This is [...]

Gabriel Symonds2022-10-07T00:53:05+00:009 October 2016|Categories: How to Quit Smoking|

Cold Turkey

So much activity in dealing with the smoking problem is directed towards trying to get smokers to stop. But you have to start doing something before you can stop doing it. In this regard it seems the official policy is to discourage young people from taking up the habit by various means, which according to scientific studies seem [...]

Gabriel Symonds2019-01-13T07:16:08+00:0027 August 2016|Categories: How to Quit Smoking|

Guidelineitis Strikes Again! Or, How Not to Quit Smoking

I recently came across an interesting guideline for doctors who are trying to help smokers quit. It’s a publication from 2008 by the US Department of Health and Human Services called Treating tobacco use and dependence. The guideline is not just for any old smokers, mind you, but for ‘smokers unwilling to quit’. Here we go again – [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-08-10T01:30:49+00:0026 August 2016|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Nicotine Addiction|

How Many Attempts Do Smokers Need Before They Quit?

How many centuries spent The sedentary soul In toils of measurement…? (W B Yeats) This curious concept is examined in a medical paper, the combined efforts of seven authors from Canada and the US, published in May 2016. Their answer: at least thirty. The research leading [...]

Gabriel Symonds2022-03-13T12:55:19+00:0022 August 2016|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Nicotine Addiction|

Tobacco Treatment Specialist

If a doctor were to call himself a tobacco treatment specialist what would you think he does? It’s ambiguous. Is he treating a disease called tobacco, similarly to the way in which a cancer treatment specialist is obviously someone who treats cancer? Or, if you talk of an acupuncture treatment specialist, it’s clearly a practitioner of acupuncture who [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-01-30T00:47:05+00:0020 August 2016|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Nicotine Patches|

How to Quit Smoking

I have just come across a brilliant feature from the Reader’s Digest: The 23 Best Ways to Quit Smoking. It’s really about hints or tips that might be helpful to would-be quitters. Here are some of them, with my comments: Set a quit date I have written a blog about why this is a bad idea: http://nicotinemonkey.com/?p=377 Write [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-09-07T00:40:42+00:001 August 2016|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Quit Smoking Tips|

How Not to Stop Smoking – Part II

What does the US National Cancer Institute have to say about stopping smoking? On their website there’s a long section titled ‘How To Handle Withdrawal Symptoms and Triggers When You Decide To Quit Smoking’. This implies that you may indeed suffer such symptoms and that ‘triggers’ are also something you will need to be aware of. These are [...]

Gabriel Symonds2019-05-10T01:34:46+00:0026 June 2016|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Nicotine Patches, Smoking Withdrawal Symptoms|

Why Do Smokers Smoke?

The other night I was eating with a friend in a local restaurant—non-smoking of course—and had occasion to observe my fellow diners. There was a party of what are known in Japan as ‘salarymen’ (company employees), consisting of about ten middle-aged people who were evidently enjoying themselves with good food and drink and animated conversation. But in the [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-01-16T12:25:28+00:0024 May 2016|Categories: How to Quit Smoking, Smoking Withdrawal Symptoms|

Why it’s a Bad Idea to Set a Smoking Quit Date

Nearly all stop smoking methods will tell you to pick a date in the near future when you intend to quit. This is a bad idea. Here’s why: First, it reinforces the widely held but mistaken notion that stopping smoking is terribly difficult: you have to prepare yourself for it and work up your will-power for the big [...]

Gabriel Symonds2022-02-18T00:39:45+00:0010 May 2016|Categories: How to Quit Smoking|