After years of smoking (13 to be exact), I finally decide it was time to give up. The main reason was simply because if i hadn't then i wold have ended up dying at a young age. I had started smoking at 14 simply to fit in with the cool kids (yeah I know, what a idiot). I was now 27 and every morning i would wake up coughing like hell and breathing like darth Vader, by the time I had walked the short journey to the shops and back I would be totally out of breath, the daft thing is that while sat down catching back some air i would pull out a cig and light light it up.

So the time finally came for me to beat my addiction once and fall, but it wasn't for me something that came easy. I tried three different courses to try quiting before i found the right one for me. I took my last drag of a cigarette 18 months ago and I havn't looked back, I now wake each morning feeling fresh and ready, the morning walk to the shops witch i used to dread as been replaced with a morning jog around the park.

The methods

Below are the different methods witch all claim to help you to stop smoking. The first three are the ones that i tried, but failed to do for different reasons. The fourth is the one witch helped me to finally kick the habbit. There is many more out there ranging from herbal remedies to prescription drugs their are even many a book on smoking and how to stop, one of witch according to my cousin helped him just quit, so maybe i'll get him to write up a review for it and add it here at a later date. Remember though that the methods below are what i tried, and just becouse some of them didn't work for me dosn't mean they wont work for you.

Nicotine Gum
Price: $8 for a pack of 24 prices although varie from chemist to chemist.
Value for money: Not bad, you take 15 peices a day so two packs will last a about 3 days.
Side affects: Taste bad, Sore throught, heartburn and hiccups.
Duration: 2 to 3 months.

My first attempt to quit was with nicotonell nicotine gum witch was advised by my doctor. It was the gum that i gave up the quickest out of my 3 failed attempts, so their isn't much i can say apart from ive never tasted anything as crappy in all my life. The couse was meant to last between 2 and 3 months, and comes in two strengths 2mg and 4mg. Anyway i managed just 5 days on the gum before giving it the boot, i had a really sore throught from all the chewing and kept getting heartburn and hiccups so i cut my losses. although they do say good things about nicotine gum, I have yet to actually meet anyone who has quit smoking using it.

Nicotine Patches
Price: $34.99 for 14 but once again price and quantity depend on were you buy them.
Value for money: good i got 14 in the box i got and they last 24 hours (also available in 16 hour). Side affects: Sleepless nights, headache, stomach ache and mood swings.
Duration: 6-12 weeks.

The doctor was a lot more helpful on on my next visit, and after a discussion about my life style he suggested i give patches a go and that if those didn't work he would try me with Zyban. I started on the 21 mg patches and though they didn't seem to work at first by the next day they seemed to be working, that night and from then on it started taking me ages to get to sleep and when i finally did drop off, I would have strange dreams and wake with a bad headache that would last most of the day, making me moody towards my wife and kids. I decided to try the 16 hour patch that you take off before bed, but although my dreams weren't bad it was still taking ages to get to sleep, and instead of an headache i would wake with a stomach ache instead. This went on for about ten days before i stopped putting them on.

Zyban
Price: prescription only
Value for money: N/A
Side affects: Bad rash, dry mouth, headaches also reports of seizures in certain people.
Duration: 8 weeks

This one i kinda cheated with, I went back to my gp (again) and was prescribed Zyban. I started the course and within hours of taking my first tablet i got a rash on my arm that itched like mad. It was a course of 1 150mg tablet a day for six days and then 2 a day for the rest of the course, it works by altering certain chemicals in the mind that stop you from withdrawing. Anyway as i said i kinda cheated i say kinda because i cant really remember that good, as my dad was in hospital and it was a really horrible month not knowing weather he'd pull through. Some days i'd wake feeling positive and would do without cigarettes, the next day i'd be so stressed out i wouldn't even notice i had lit one up. at the end of the first month i decide not to continue with them, and try another way.
Audio Hypnosis Price: $47 Value for money: Good. Along with the audio tape i got 5 bonus items chucked in, including a quit smoking book and stress relief audio tape, and more.
Side affects: Only positive ones.
Duration: The main audio is a 40 minute session.

After my three previous attempts had ended in failure, i again saw my doctor to see what else i could try, he told me he had been hearing of late that many a people were using hypnosis to pack in there habits. I was more determined to stop than ever and was willing to try anything. I did a little researching and found many testaments giving a programme of audio hypnosis the thumbs up, all of them saying it had helped change there life in some way, and so i decided to give it a go. I visited many sites and decided to go with the one that had the most positive responses and best success rate. As soon as i received it i gave it a go, And here i am 18 months later and i haven't touched a smoke since that day. I'm amazed at how listening to 40 minutes of words as not helped me stop but MADE me stop. In under a hour using NLP (neuro linguistic programming) techniques programmed my mind into never again wanting or needing to smoke. It really was that easy and the small amount I paid for the programme was made back within the first week, and only cost a little more than i had paid for the patches, with which I had failed miserably.