For the Skeptics of NRT

So a little bit of background on my smoking history..

I started smoking in early high school and have been smoking for around 12 years and generally smoked 25 cigarettes a day.

A few years ago i started to become aware that i needed to quit. I started thinking about the fact that i was in my early 20's and wanted to one day have children and watch them grow up, i even wanted to have grandchildren and see them grow up. None of which was going to happen if i continued to throw my precious years away on an expensive form of suicide. By this time i had also started to get a heavy chest and a tickle in m throat of a morning which made me cough if i breathed in too deeply.

Since having this revelation, i have attempted to quit countless number of times over the last few years, but I have just never seemed to make it stick.

My quit plans only ever involved "Cold Turkey" and generally lasted no more than 3 weeks.

Last year i decided that maybe i did need some help if i was ever going to kick the habit for good and went to a Hypnotherapy session. It may sound strange, but i do think that there is some validity in hypnotherapy. I didnt feel like smoking afterwoods, but i found myself in quite a deep depression. So despite not having the desire to smoke i pushed past and continued to smoke to stop the feelings of depression. Thus adding to another failed attempt.

I was always very sceptical on any NRT (or any other product to assist) and firmly belived that it was simply a mental habit which i had to face on my own. However, this time i have decided to give patches a go - so far 2 days smoke free. After a few days on the patches i realise that by having that closed state of mind to any product to assist me in the quit process that i was really only hurting myself - turns out that there are things that can help me face my deamons!

The patches seem to take the edge off all the emotions which usually leave me a train wreck for a few weeks. I also find that cigarettes dont seem to consume EVERY thought throughout my day. Dont get me wrong, i still get cravings and think about smoking it just doesnt seem to have the intensity that you get with "cold turkey".

So this time around im trying everything new, im on patches and even on this site - both things which i would never have tried before.

i guess i came to the realisation that obviously the strategies that i have used in the past didnt work, so why continue to flog a dead horse and think that i was going to get a different result this time around.

For anyone out there who is skeptical of NRT, i suggest that you give it a try, realistically what do you have to loose other than cigarettes???