National no smoking day . Help at hand
03/21/2018
Stop Smoking Services offer gold-standard support
The NHS Stop Smoking Services offer the best chance of quitting. Last year, just over half of those setting a quit date with Stop Smoking Services were successful.
Today you can sign up for free support via emails, texts and social media at One Day Quit. But there’s an even wider range of free support, advice and medication available from the NHS Stop Smoking Services all year round.
Stop Smoking Services provide quitting support tailored to your needs. You might feel more comfortable with telephone-based support, help in a group session might appeal to you or one-to-one counselling might be more your cup of tea.
There’s also a range of prescription medications available to ease your transition to a life free from nicotine addiction. These are broadly split into nicotine-replacement therapy (NRT) and other medications.
Replacing nicotine without the dangerous chemicals from cigarettes
Giving up smoking can be hard because nicotine causes addiction in much the same way as heroin or cocaine and is just as addictive as these ‘harder’ drugs. But it’s not all bad news. Using NRT can increase your likelihood of quitting by 50-70 percent.
It’s recommended that NRT is used for between 8 to 12 weeks and different products can be used together to get the right dose of nicotine for you:
- Nasal spray – provides the quickest and strongest dose of nicotine and can be particularly useful for heavy smokers. A meta-analysis of the different types of NRT suggested that nasals sprays offer the greatest increase in likelihood of quitting;
- Lozenges – give short bursts of nicotine over 20 – 30 minutes;
- Inhalators – look like plastic cigarettes and may be helpful if you miss the physical aspect of smoking;
- Patches – slowly release nicotine directly into the bloodstream and can be used all day or also overnight;
- Gum –provides short bursts of nicotine;
- Microtabs – dissolve under the tongue to give a nicotine dose more discreetly.
