How can I quit without using any medications?

Yes, you can quit without using any medications! There are a variety of ways to do this, but the most successful is to reduce your smoking to less than ten cigarettes per day, maintain this level for a few weeks, then quit cold turkey. The purpose of reducing before you quit is to smoke at a level that does not produce drug dependence on nicotine, or that is only minimally addicting. Then, when you finally quit, your cravings will be the result of your smoking habit, and not an addiction to nicotine.

If you are a heavy smoker, you can gradually reduce your smoking down to below ten a day in a variety of ways. You can first eliminate the "unconscious" cigarettes from your daily smoking habit. These are the cigarettes that you smoke but are barely aware of while you are smoking them. You can shift to "conscious smoking" by not smoking while you talk on the phone, or by not allowing a cigarette to burn while you do something else. Smoke only when you can give your attention to it. Keep your favorite cigarettes, and do not give them up until you are ready to quit. Common favorite cigarettes include the first cigarette in the morning with coffee, the cigarette after a meal, and the before-bedtime cigarette.

You can also reduce you smoking by changing brands and by reducing the amount of nicotine content by one milligram each week. This means that if your brand contains 0.9 mgs of nicotine in each cigarette, the next week you would change to a brand with 0.8 mgs, and continue changing brands each week until you are smoking brands with only trace amounts of nicotine in each cigarette. Another reduction strategy is to smoke only half a cigarette at a time, later changing to only a fourth of a cigarette.

An important key to successfully quitting cold turkey is to prepare in advance to quit by identifying a variety of relaxation, stress, and feeling management strategies that will help you cope with cigarette cravings. This combination of strategies is very helpful, and, even if you use medications, is always needed to successfully quit smoking.