Nicotine Detox
Nicotine withdrawal is one of the hardest things that I ever had to go through. Nicotine detox is no joke. At first, you think it will be no big deal. Sure, everyone likes to have a cigarette now and then, but you can resist, can't you? You just need to find something else to do rather than taking smoke breaks. After a day or two, however, it can get pretty serious. You get moody and irritated. You start eating more or needing to take long walks to deal with the anxiety. By some estimates, even heroin detox is easier than nicotine detox. Whether or not this is true, one fact remains. If you want to quit smoking successfully, you need to detoxify from the nicotine first.
There are several different ways to do this. The most classic one, of course, is the cold turkey quit smoking approach. You simply stop having cigarettes and do not let yourself have another one. There are several different ways to do this, of course. You can do it alone or get help from friends. You can even check yourself into a detox center for a weekend or take a camping trip to an area where you will not be able to get a cigarette.
Some people find this approach harsh to the point of counteractive. They argue that this way of doing nicotine detox tends to fail, causing people to give up on quitting smoking. Many of them prefer to quit smoking slowly, using nicotine patches and gum. This approach has its own pitfalls, of course. You really need to keep track of everything very carefully, and the nicotine detox. takes a lot longer. Rather than having terrible symptoms of nicotine withdrawal for a weekend, you have them for weeks and weeks at a time. Although they are less severe, they last so much longer that some people find it easier to start smoking again.
A lot of folks that I know believe that nicotine detoxification can be aided by other medicines or herbal supplements. Indeed, it seems like there are some kinds of gums and pills that really do work pretty well. They help you to suppress your cravings for cigarettes, making it much less likely that you'll start smoking again. By taking this sort of medication while you are going through withdrawal, you can avoid having to deal with the worst of the cravings. You will still want a cigarette from time to time, but it will be much easier to deal with.
