Nicotine Gum - Does it Really Work? (If Not, How Can You Quit Smoking?)

There's a lot of hype built up around nicotine replacement products, like nicotine gum. Plenty of people swear by them, and just as many are just as adamant against them.

Nicotine gum treats the physical symptoms of a smoking addiction. Instead of craving the nicotine spike from smoking a cigarette, chewing nicotine gum gives you the same delivery of nicotine without all of the cancer-causing bad stuff.

Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? There are two major problems with it, though. First, people end up addicted to nicotine gum, which puts you in a similar boat to smoking. Granted, you don't have all of the health problems, but you still end up addicted to something, and nicotine is bad for your body.

The second and far more important problem is that nicotine gum doesn't treat the real cause behind smoking addiction: mental addiction. As a smoker, you are trained to want cigarettes based on certain mental triggers, such as when you're out with your friends, when you're stressed, etc.

Nicotine gum doesn't do anything for the mental addiction, which is why nicotine gum doesn't end up working. To actually quit smoking and not look back on it, you need to tell your mind that it doesn't actually want cigarettes, not just replace them with something else.

If you don't solve the mental addiction behind smoking, you're never going to quit smoking. Everyone says that quitting smoking is hard for a reason: very few people actually stop smoking and become non-smokers. Most people become smokers that just aren't smoking because they're denying themselves cigarettes, which is why so many people relapse into smoking.

About the Author:

You don't have to spend a massive amount of time taking classes or talking to people about quitting smoking, though. I quit smoking in just an hour (and I read slowly!) with this guide on curing the mental addiction of smoking. Does nicotine gum really work?