Stories & experiences

Hi Nicki. Champix will do its thing and take away your urge to smoke. You still need to work on keeping your motivation to quit smoking. The psychological aspect of quitting is just as or more important than kicking the nicotine addiction. Read our stories and find the mindset to help you along and to sustain your quit. Understanding Nicotine and you goes a long way.

Thank you, I know its not a magic pill and wont do all the work. just hoping to keep the motivation and determination

Hello Nicki,
Well done for not giving up 'giving up'.
I am on day 16 of Champix and this is my second time around using the drug. I quit the first time around using it but stopped taking them in week 7. It is important that they are taken until the end. I stopped because my husband was appearing in my vivid champix dreams and they were horrible. We had just lost him 3 months before to brain cancer and I was trying to shove grief aside to look after our little girl. It was all too much. This is why I stopped taking champix and 2 years later I am trying it again and it looks like it is working.
In my 20 years as a smoker, I tried patches, acupuncture, vape, cold turkey, gum, hypnotherapy, and Zyban.
None of these really assisted and looking back some of them only took a slight edge off the withdrawals.
I have just got off the phone to quitline as I read that I was supposed to choose a quit date 10-14 days of taking the pill. It's day 16 and I mentally prepared for stopping next Monday. They were a great help and talking it through made me realise I was panicking about failing. Not failing to stop, but failing long term....because I have tried and desperately wanted to stop in the past. It's a fact that the more you try the greater success of stopping. Quitline have agreed to call me once a week so I can report in. We talked through options and this one appeals to my psychie.
It is scary stopping, we are confronting all our fears. But I know that once I stop, I am not going to be scared of stopping anymore, if that makes sense lol
And those dreams? And the sleeplessness and nausea....a lot better having that than lung cancer or a heart attack I reckon.
I hope champix is as effective for you as it has been on me. Good luck!

Welcome Nicki, I used Champix after trying for a few times, eventually, my dreams were too vivid and nightmarish, so I opted out of the evening dose, some others have taken the 2nd dose with their evening meal. It still worked for me on half the dose, but you still need to stop smoking, and please work out a day to get off the Champix tabs themselves, you can choose when to do this yourself, the guidelines are there for your information but it is not a hard and fast rule.

It is so important to learn about the addictive nature of smoking so that you have it firmly rooted in your mind. Maintenance is the part where you definitely need some practical guidance which you can get from this forum. NOPE (not one puff ever) is the Mantra adopted by most of us and it works so keep on practising this in your mind or in your notes every day.

Thank you for the insights, I’ll definitely be mindful of the side effects and emotional impact

My quit date is the 25th 🤞🏼🤞🏼

Hi, the side effects suck but nothing compared to the side effects of smoking! I think it's worth a few side effects to not go through withdrawal which is a nightmare. Good luck.