“What’s in a name?” William Shakespeare asked. Chewing tobacco goes by a number of names, usually depending upon the place of birth and residence of the chewer. It’s important to remember that regardless of the name given, nicotine exists in all forms of chewing tobacco. In today’s world, we know that the effects of cigarette smoking long-term are very often fatal, but some chewers fail to understand that smokeless tobacco, chaw, chew, snuff, and dipping have similar consequences to a chewer’s health. In fact, since nicotine is addictive in all forms of tobacco use, many medical researchers believe that chewing tobacco is more addictive and has a more difficult nicotine withdrawal syndrome than cigarette and pipe smoking because chewing tobacco contains such a large amount of pure tobacco leaves.

The bottom line is that chewing tobacco has a very toxic and deadly mix of chemicals just like cigarettes, but without the smoke. In addition to nicotine, chewing tobacco contains carcinogens, or chemicals that cause cancer like nitrates, nitrites, nitrosamines and polycyclic hydrocarbons. In studying chewing tobacco, researchers gave laboratory animals these chemicals in amounts that simulate what humans ingest by chewing, and found that the animals eventually, over time, developed a number of serious, malignant cancers.

How many Major League baseball games have you attended where the outfield players spat a huge glob of saliva and chewing tobacco juices onto the field? Do they look tough, “manly” and intimidating? Unfortunately, they’ll be none of these when they develop malignant oral cancer, the number one killer of chewers. Unlike cigarette smoke, which causes esophagus and lung cancer, chewing tobacco stays in the mouth for a long time; the nicotine and carcinogenic chemicals are pressed and absorbed into the mucous membranes between the cheek and gums. These substances are very irritating to these delicate membranes, and cells in the mouth become chronically inflamed, eventually turning into unhealthy scar tissue. Oral cancer cells develop over time. Chewing tobacco causes white patches on the tongue, gums, and cheeks; these patches are called leukoplakia and are often large enough to be seen with the eye rather than through a microscope. Thus, chewing tobacco not only leads to nicotine dependence, but also to cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach and bladder since an amount of tobacco juice is inevitably swallowed.

Just like cigarette smoking, chewing tobacco cessation is difficult because of the nicotine withdrawal syndrome. Nicotine is powerfully addictive, but also like cigarette smokers, those who find pleasure in chewing tobacco can, with medical and emotional support, overcome this addiction. By the time chewers notice a white patch in their mouth – a possible cancer symptom – it is not too late to receive treatment for a pre-cancerous condition and to succeed in chewing tobacco cessation. Oral cancer is most often fatal, with a five-year survival rate of only around 50%.

If you’re a chewer and notice white patches in your mouth, see your physician or dentist immediately while there is still time for you to halt cancerous growths through medical treatment. For more information about chewing tobacco cessation, contact the American Cancer Society.

How to quit smoking

* Medical Care – Drug companies have developed medication to help the campaign against smoking.  For example, the antidepressant Bupropion lessens nicotine cravings and withdrawal symptoms.  This drug is comparable to most nicotine replacement therapies.  Studies show people have successful stopped smoking in as short as three months with this method.

* Alternative Medicine – There are a number of alternative medical care available to help you quit smoking.  These include meditation as well as herbal supplements and drinks to control nicotine cravings. 

- Meditation will allow you to relax your mind and body.  Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the conditioned, “thinking” mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness. Meditation often involves turning attention to a single point of reference, in this case smoking cessation.  It will help you be more focused and assist in removing your cravings.  The deep breathing techniques that is involved in meditation will effectively help to oxygenate your body and relieve anxiety and stress, making you less likely to crave for that stick of cigarette. 

- Hypnosis and NLP are also alternatives that will help to get to the root of the psychological need for a smoke.  Hypnosis is a distinctive, often trance-like mental state that is induced by an organized pattern of suggestions which are usually verbal in nature.  The suggestions may be directly induced by a clinical hypnotherapist in the presence of the subject, but may also be self-induced.  This would normally require a few sessions for it to be effective in helping to quit smoking.  Or you could click here to access a gentle and pleasurable hypnosis online that gives you 100% money-back guarantee if it doesn’t work on you to help you to remove your cravings for that stick of cigarette and quit smoking. 

- As for herbal supplements and drinks, these have been known to work as well.  There are some very special plants available to us that we can use to support our healthy wholeness and to help to quit smoking although this is not advertised. Have personally seen a few friends on whom this method has worked and the process is very simple.  No hassles and no challenges.

* Using Patches – Another way of quitting smoking is by making use of patches.  Patches which can be purchased at any pharmacies or by doctor’s prescription have been known to help people solve their smoking addiction.  The percentage of success though is not high.  Nicotine replacement therapies are other tools that can help to manage nicotine cravings, withdrawal symptoms and resulting in smoking cessation.

* Another tool to quit smoking is through an ancient Chinese medical technique called acupuncture.  Acupuncture involves the insertion of extremely thin needles through your skin, to various depths at strategic points on your body.  This usually involves a series of weekly or biweekly treatments in an outpatient setting.  Acupuncture has seen success in the field of smoking cessation.

* Belonging to a support group where members provide each other with providing and evaluating relevant information pertaining to smoking cessation, relating their personal experiences, listening to and accepting others’ experiences, providing sympathetic understanding and establishing social networks can help a smoker succeed in his quest to quit smoking.  A support group can be very valuable in terms of the support that is given.

* Most important of all is to focus on the goal and the desired outcome.  The methods are numerous and many.  However, the end result is to quit smoking.  Without commitment and determination, the number of smokers are not able to overcome their bad habit of smoking.  Unless they have a strong commitment to themselves and a burning desire to quit smoking, they will not be able to overcome their smoking habit for good.

Smoking is an addiction to nicotine.  Just a few sticks a day can be harmful to your health and damaging to your cells in the long run.  Many smokers do think to quit smoking but because it is not easy to do so and requires a big commitment and strong desire to want to quit smoking, many avoid going through the actual quit smoking drive and continue with what they are most comfortable with. 

Core Desire To Quit Smoking

In order to be able to quit smoking successfully, you must first of all know why is it that you want to quit smoking.  What are the benefits that you are looking for?  Better health, improved fitness level, getting back your sense of taste and smell, easier breathing, less likelihood of developing heart disease, lung disease, stroke or cancer are some of the benefits that smokers look forward to when they decide to quit smoking.  Not only are the health benefits to the smoker numerous, even more advantageous is the better environment for those around the smokers, especially for their loved ones.

To quit smoking may be one of the hardest things you have ever embarked upon as it can be a monumental task.  In order to successfully quit smoking, you have to know all your own reasons for wanting to get rid of a habit that may have taken up more than half or even three-quarters of your life.  Although our society is becoming less accepting of smoking with some governments enforcing ‘No Smoking Sections’ in food outlets and air-conditioned areas, if you are not ready to undertake the challenge to quit smoking, nothing will help you kick the habit for good.

Why Quit Smoking

In order to be able to kick the smoking habit for life, you want to be able to take some time to prepare yourself.  Have a goal for yourself as in when you want to start to quit smoking, how are you going to go through the whole program without relapse, what you will do if you face a relapse, how are you going to cut down on the cigarettes, by when will it be zero cigarettes, and so on.  Once you have written out your plan, stick to it as closely as possible.  It would be advisable to start slowly, that is, if you smoke ten sticks a day, you may cut down by one a day for one day, then two a day for two days…..  There is no right or wrong.  Do what you feel comfortable with.  Eventually you will find yourself smoking less and you can adjust the plan if so required.

It would be good to also think of some of the worst case scenarios that could befall you if you do not quit smoking now.  Then write down the reasons that motivate you to want to kick the smoking habit.  Look at the consequences in a positive light and give yourself the encouragement and commitment to go through this huge step now.

Announce To Yourself Your Intention

As studies have shown, your brain plays a very important part in this as well.  Picture yourself actually having quit smoking!  Give yourself positive affirmations everyday as well.  “I have quit smoking as I want better health.”  Or “I have quit smoking as I want to breathe better.”  Most smokers find that they tend to go back to their normal after having quit for a day or two, and most are back at it within three to six months.  Do not be discouraged if that happens.  So long as you have the will to go for it and the mind to quit smoking, that will be a good starting point. 

Announce To Others Your Intention

Another way that many have found helpful and succeeded in their journey to quit smoking is to announce to everyone what you are intending to do.  Ask for their help and support.  Tell your family, colleagues, business associates, friends and everyone you know that you are going to kick the smoking habit and get their support to help you.  Announce to the whole world.

Some ex-smokers have found that it helps to suck on sweets or chew gum when they feel the urge to want to smoke and go back to the habit.  By doing so, this helps you get over the sensation of having that cigarette in your mouth. 

Certain health drinks also have the ability to help you curb your smoking desire by working at the cellular level.  A friend of mine was skeptical and did not think that it would work.  However, he tried the juice and it helped him quit smoking.  It has now been more than a month since he touched a stick.  There have also been many testimonials by others who have been helped in this way.

If none of the above work, another program that you might consider is Neuro-Linguistic Programming or Hypnosis.  It is a natural way to help train your mind to quit smoking which has helped thousands to quit.  With the correct mindset, core desire and commitment, you can stop smoking cigarettes by today, and for the rest of your life.

For example, many smokers choose to quit “cold turkey.” This is clinically referred to as abrupt cessation meaning that you simply go from being a smoker to a non-smoker in a day. The term is actually slang for the cold, bumpy, pale skin of a plucked turkey that most narcotic addicts develop with abrupt cessation; it doesn’t actually occur with smoking cessation. Like other methods, but to a greater degree, relapse prevention for former cold turkey smokers is especially difficult because today you have a high volume of nicotine in your body, and tomorrow, you will have none. Nicotine addiction creates uncomfortable physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms that must be the primary focus of your relapse prevention plan.

Consider these quit smoking tips and relapse prevention plan elements:

• When you made the decision to stop smoking, you were only half-way to your goal of becoming smoke-free. The other half of your plan must be relapse prevention. You not only want to stop – you also want to stay smoke-free.
• Know your enemy! Regardless of your smoking cessation method, be sure you know the symptoms of nicotine addiction withdrawal. Understanding why you feel anxious or irritable, and knowing that these symptoms will soon pass makes your relapse prevention plan more powerful than nicotine’s call!
• Keep a “relapse record.” Every time you feel tempted to smoke, write down where you were at the time, what was happening, and how you were feeling. Since nicotine addiction is both physical and psychological, relapse prevention involves understanding all your “triggers” that make you want to smoke; you have to know what they are before you know how to resist them.
• In addiction terminology, there is a distinct difference between a “slip” and a “relapse.” If you’re in a social situation, for example, and you smoke a cigarette or two, then realize the danger you’re in and stop, this is a slip. A relapse, however, is a return to smoking full-time, just as you did before you quit. If you have a slip, don’t make the mistake of telling yourself that you’ve failed and you might as well keep on smoking. Your relapse prevention plan should include how you will handle slips without a return to smoking.
• What if you do return to smoking? Understand that this may indeed happen because of the powerful nature of nicotine addiction. Some people stop smoking for a year or more, and then, for various reasons, return to smoking. If this happens to you, or has already happened to you, also understand that most people seldom get anything right the very first time they try it. Life just isn’t that easy. Have the courage to try again. And again. And yet again, until you reach your goal of long-term smoking cessation.

Poet Maya Angelou wrote that “You did the best you knew how at the time. When you knew better, you did better.” Applying this concept to smoking cessation and relapse prevention, here’s what you need to know to do better: (1) Nicotine addiction is strong, but you can choose to be stronger, (2) Relapse prevention must be a part of your complete smoking cessation plan, (3) Every time you slip or relapse, you will learn valuable lessons about your smoking triggers, and (4) Never stop trying!

Today we have information about smoking-related cancers and other illnesses, and the benefits of quitting smoking. We’re also well-informed about the dangers of second-hand smoke. Tobacco smoke is deadly, whether you actively inhale it or are exposed to it through other smokers.

Among the benefits of quitting smoking is reducing the risk of smoking-related cancers of the lungs, jaw, tongue, lymph nodes and esophagus. Even second-hand smoke can cause these cancers. It is primarily the tar content that causes cancer. The greatest benefit of quitting smoking is that you will not be putting tar, a toxic poison, into your body.

Some of the symptoms of cancer caused by tar-containing tobacco smoke are white spots on the tongue, lips, throat, gums, and jaw structure, deep, sputum-producing coughing spells, difficulty swallowing, recurring infections of the lymph nodes, and difficulty breathing. Another benefit of quitting smoking and reducing your exposure to second-hand smoke is that toxic tar won’t collect in your lungs, throat, and lymph nodes.

Asthma is a medical condition that causes a serious constriction of the airway passages, making it difficult, sometimes impossible, to breathe. Severe asthma can be fatal if it isn’t quickly treated with an inhaled steroid medication. Asthma is caused by, or worsened, by tobacco smoke, including second-hand smoke. If you suffer from asthma, one of the benefits of quitting smoking is that your asthma attacks can be significantly reduced or even eliminated. If you have a child with asthma, it’s imperative that you not expose him/her to your second-hand smoke or allow other smokers to do so.

If you have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) the benefits of quitting smoking are extremely important. COPD is the chronic obstruction of your airways; it can occur with emphysema, chronic bronchitis, or both of these disorders. Coughing, choking, and gasping for breath, and smoking-related cancer are symptoms of COPD. The primary cause of this illness is tobacco smoking. Thus, it is entirely preventable simply by not smoking. The benefit of quitting smoking for those with COPD is a lack or delay of progression of the disease e.g. lung damage. Unfortunately smoking-related COPD damage is irreversible and permanent. Although its symptoms can usually be treated, for people with severe, advanced COPD the survival prognosis is very poor.

Emphysema is a disease similar to COPD; it too causes serious airway obstruction, and often occurs along with COPD. The primary treatment for emphysema is to stop smoking and/or breathing second-hand smoke. The benefit of quitting smoking among emphysema sufferers, like COPD; progression of the disease is delayed, but the airway and lung damage is permanent and eventually fatal. With end-stage emphysema, a mechanical breathing machine is necessary unless the terminal patient has an advanced medical directive declining this treatment.

The benefits of quitting smoking are clear and in most cases, hopeful. However, years of exposure to tobacco smoke takes its toll in the form of terminal illness that could have been prevented. To reap these benefits of quitting smoking, make a plan today to stop smoking!

You already know that nicotine is a powerfully addicting substance that creates the delinquent (unhealthy) behaviour of continuing use of tobacco. When you’re ready to quit, there are a variety of stop smoking aids to help you, including medications that reduce physical cravings for nicotine and nicotine replacement patches that, over several weeks, gradually weaning users off this drug. These stop smoking aids are very effective, but they only address the physiology of smoking behaviour. Unless your smoking cessation program includes a component that addresses breaking the psychological habit, your chances of relapse is high, especially if you quit smoking “cold turkey.”

Is it deviant behaviour to continue using a drug that you know is slowly killing you? Well, yes. This applies to all addictive drugs. Stop smoking medical aids address physical cravings; behaviour modification addresses the psychological habit of smoking. For example, you may have the habit of smoking after a meal not because you’re craving nicotine, but because you’ve developed psychological habits that you associate with smoking. Driving, talking on the phone, having a beer and a cigarette, playing cards, watching TV, smoking while you’re working – all these are habits that can be eliminated through a combination of behaviour modification and stop smoking aids that address the physiology of behaviour.

Here’s how it works: Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) was devised in the 1950’s by Carl Rogers and Aaron Beck; CBT is the most common treatment approach to most mental distress, including addiction. Very simply, if you change the way you think (cognitions), you can change the way you behave. CBT and stop smoking aids have great potential in helping you become a non-tobacco user. Returning to the example of smoking after meals, if you use CBT to eliminate thoughts such as “Great meal; time for a smoke,” you can eliminate the behaviour of smoking after meals. CBT is that easy! All you have to do is switch your thought to “I really don’t want nicotine, thanks to my stop smoking aids, I’m just feeling my habit.” CBT is sometimes combined with the use of hypnosis to stop smoking. In a deep state of hypnotic relaxation, your therapist can effectively help you form new thoughts about smoking that will lead to non-smoking.

When physicians prescribe stop smoking aids like medications that reduce craving, they strongly advise patients to cope not only with the physiology of smoking behaviour, but also see an addiction therapist who uses behaviour modification techniques like CBT. Using these techniques, you can become an ex-smoker forever!

Here’s why: Recording your smoking habits in a smoker’s journal helps you identify your smoking triggers and moods, so you can better devise your quit-smoking plan. You might think you know why you’re lighting up, but writing down the these information can give useful insight into your smoking patterns or triggers. For example, you might be chain-smoking when you’re hanging out with your friends, or you might be smoking partly to kill time. This new insight into your stressors can help you strategize ways to beat your urge to smoke.

1. Click to download and print out your Smoker’s Journal.
2. Record your daily smoking patterns by noting down in your journal each time you have a cigarette, where you have it, with whom, and your reason for lighting up. Keep track of your need to smoke under the Urge column with a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being low, 5 high).
3. At the end of each day, review your journal to identify patterns or triggers in your smoking habit.

There are numerous immediate benefits of quitting smoking. Within eight hours of your last tobacco use, nicotine and deadly carbon monoxide levels in your body decrease by half, and oxygen levels return to normal.  Within twenty-four hours of your last tobacco use, whether you use stop smoking aids or not, all nicotine and carbon monoxide is eliminated from your body.  Your lungs begin to expel excess mucous caused by smoking.  This is usually the point when you experience urges to smoke and realize that easy ways to stop smoking are a myth.  Within forty-eight hours, all nicotine has left your body; your sense of taste and smell improves greatly but your urges to smoke are still powerful, and you may find that stop smoking aids help you resist the urge to “feed your addiction” to nicotine.   Within seventy-two hours, your bronchial tubes relax and your energy levels increase as the urge to smoke begins to wane.  Within three months of being smoke-free, your circulation has improved, your lung function increases by 30%, and all your breathing is further increased by 10%.

There are a variety of medical stop smoking aids that are not easy ways to quit smoking but they are very helpful, especially during the initial forty-eight hour nicotine withdrawal period.  Regardless of the method you choose to quit smoking, the first necessity is joining a quit smoking support group.  Like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, support groups provide you with the motivation and encouragement to succeed.  A non-smoker, even if he/she is your physician can’t possibly understand what you’re going through; others who are using stop smoking aids or quitting “cold turkey” do understand.

Two prescription medications, Zyban and Chantix, can help stop urges to smoke. Zyban is a form of bupropion, an antidepressant medication marketed as Wellbutrin.  Quite accidentally, it was discovered that bupropion not only relieved depression, but also could be used as a stop smoking aid.  Zyban increases the same brain chemicals as nicotine, so a smoker’s urge to smoke is diminished.  However, it can take Zyban up to 7-12 weeks to affect urges to smoke.

The new stop smoking aid on the market is Chantix (varenicline).  This mediation works to make quitting smoking easier by blocking the nicotine receptors in your brain; you won’t get that “smoker’s high” if you don’t receive nicotine into your central nervous system.  Chantix works just like Narcan, a drug that blocks opiate receptor sites in the brain.  The most common side effects of Chantix are nausea, sleep disturbance, constipation, gas and vomiting; tell your physician if you experience these side effects, none of which are life-threatening and can be easily treated.  Chantix is pricey, but covered by major prescription plans.  Phizer Pharmaceuticals often offer Chantix coupons for new users; ask your physician about this.

Many physicians prescribe a minor tranquilizer like Valium or Klonopin along with Zyban or Chantix to help, on a short-term basis, with the anxiety caused by nicotine withdrawal.  Caution must be used with these addictive drugs; there’s no sense in replacing one addiction with another!

A new and unique stop smoking aid that is receiving a lot of attention in the medical world is the use of Low Level Laser Therapy.  LLLT is based upon acupuncture principles, but instead of using needles on specific points of the body, LLLT directs soft, painless laser beam into these points.  By stimulating your body’s feel-good endorphins, you will feel decreased urges to smoke.

Since there is no easy way to stop smoking, smokers who decline to use stop smoking aids still find the “cold turkey” method as the only thing that works in the long run. Although nicotine is a toxic chemical, it is the cigarette or cigar smoke itself that causes the majority of health dangers.  Nicotine gum and patches are still very popular and inexpensive, gradually reducing the amount of addictive nicotine you use in order to decrease physical cravings.  There is no right or wrong way to stop smoking; there is only your way.

If you are a smoker, you probably wish you could quit the disgusting habit. You are most likely tired of throwing money away on cigarettes, and sick of looking for an appropriate place to smoke in public. After all, it’s hard to ignore what smoking is doing to your teeth and your complexion, not to mention the long list of deadly health risks associated with each cigarette.

You may have attempted to quit in the past, but failed. If you have tried patches, gums, stop smoking medication and help quit smoking programs, but have not yet tried hypnosis to quit smoking, don’t throw in the towel yet. Hypnosis to quit smoking is a truly effective, and many even call it the easy way to stop smoking.

Through hypnosis you can kick your addiction to nicotine with no cravings and no withdrawal. With this fast and easy quit smoking way, your brain simply forgets to smoke. You will lose the urge to smoke and will be able to put cigarettes down for good.

If you try to quit smoking cold turkey, or even with the aid of stop smoking medication, you will still suffer the misery and depression that accompanies the feeling that you are depriving yourself of a pleasure. In a hypnosis to quit smoking program, you will not feel deprived, you will not feel that you have made a sacrifice, and you will not be in any pain.

While in this state of relaxation, the client experiences an incredible increase in suggestibility. While in this state of mind, the hypnotherapist gives hypnotic suggestions to a smoker that will permanently alter his/her thinking about smoking. Through hypnotic suggestion, the smoker finds the confidence and determination to quit smoking for good.

Kicking the smoking habit may seem like a monumental feat. But it is possible to quit smoking without experiencing cravings, depression and misery. With a hypnosis to quit smoking program, you can become and remain a non-smoker.

Nicotine is a central nervous system stimulant; many people use smoking tobacco and other forms of nicotine use as a “pick me up” when they are tired, stressed, or feeling depressed. For example, alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, causing relaxation in small doses. Tobacco leaves contain the drug nicotiana, the chemical name of nicotine. It can be inhaled (smoked), or absorbed through the mucous membranes as in chewing tobacco. Nicotine addiction is the hardest addiction to overcome due to the uncomfortable nicotine withdrawal syndrome that occurs within only a day of nicotine cessation. These withdrawal symptoms are truly troublesome and most often cause the smoker or chewer to relapse to avoid them.

Yet, nicotine addiction is not an unbeatable foe! The American Surgeon General and other public health officials around the world devised smoking cessation products that really work! Since nicotine withdrawal is the primary cause of relapse back into using tobacco, efforts have been focused on helping tobacco users beat those uncomfortable symptoms. Since the introduction of these products, millions of people world-wide have saved their lives by tobacco cessation.

Initially, the nicotine patch was available only by prescription. Today, these nicotine withdrawal aids are available for purchase in your local drug store. The nicotine patch works by delivering a carefully measured amount of nicotine into your body each day, so nicotine addicts experience a gradual decline in the amount of nicotine that your body receives; this prevents nicotine withdrawal in most tobacco users. As your use of nicotine decreases with the nicotine patch, so do the nicotine withdrawal syndrome of intense craving, dizziness, shaking hands, insomnia and mood irritability. If you decide to quit smoking tobacco “cold turkey,” you can expect these intense symptoms to occur for 4-7 days. But using the nicotine patch will greatly enhance your chances of successful smoking cessation.

The nicotine gum is also helpful for nicotine addiction. Once available only by prescription, Nicorette gum is now available over the counter in your drug store. Whenever your nicotine addiction creates a craving for nicotine and you are experiencing nicotine withdrawal, all you need to do is chew a bit of this gum, which is pleasant to the taste and delivers an adequate amount of nicotine into your system to save off nicotine withdrawal symptoms.

The most hazardous effect of smoking or chewing tobacco is not nicotine itself, but the harmful effects of inhaling smoke into your lungs or absorbing nicotine through your mouth. These are the effects that cause severe cases of cancer of the lungs, esophagus, stomach, and mouth. If you can master your nicotine addiction, tobacco cessation will be much easier.