Jessie your question evidences just how effective pharmaceutical industry marketing has been at brainwashing smokers into believing that if they cannot quit with NRT -- the best modern science has to offer �?that they’re hopeless. How effective do you think that nicotine patch is Jessie? If we gave a full supply to 100 quitters, how many would still be not smoking at six months? The answer is just 7 out of 100. But it gets even worse for second time nicotine patch users, their odds drop to less than 1 in 100. Yes, less than one percent.

But don’t take my word for it. Read the below studies and study summaries for yourself. The first study listed, the one combining and averaging the results of all six 6 over-the-counter nicotine patch studies and finding just a 7% six month quitting rate was conducted by GlaxoSmithKline consultants, the maker of Nicorette gum, the Commit lozenge and the Nicoderm patch. If you cannot trust the researchers that GlaxoSmithKline consults for answers then who can you trust?

• "A meta-analysis of the efficacy of over-the-counter nicotine replacement"    The long term (that is, greater than six months) quit rates for OTC NRT was 1% and 6% in two studies and 8�?1% in five other studies. These results were not homogenous; however, when combined the estimated OR [odds ratio] was 7%  - http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/12/1/21?ijkey=5.ko5/Oz4yutI  A study by JR Hughes and S Shiffman, et al. 2003.    Dr Hughes has received speaking and consulting fees and grants from Glaxo-SmithKline and Pharmacia, both of whom market nicotine replacement products, as well as from other companies/organisations that provide smoking cessation services and products. Dr Shiffman serves as a consultant to GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare (GSKCH) on an exclusive basis regarding matters relating to smoking cessation. Dr Shiffman has a financial interest in a venture to develop new nicotine medications.
• "Recycling with nicotine patches in smoking cessation"  -  "After 26 weeks, all subjects had relapsed in the group previously treated with active nicotine patch ..." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8485431&dopt=Abstract - a 1993 study by Tonnesen

Contrary to the implications of NRT marketing, almost all successful long-term quitters quit smoking cold turkey - about 90%.   The biggest difference between the two quitting methods is that with each NRT quitting attempt your odds of success actually decline, while with each cold turkey attempt you stand a chance of eventually discovering the The Law of Addiction (the power of one puff of nicotine to cause relapse) through trial and error and of eventually succeeding.  Think long and hard, , what lesson could possibly be learned by repeated toying with pharmaceutical grade nicotine?

But you do not need to wait to discover the law of addiction through the school of hard-quitting-knocks.  If you'll read  Joel's Library one time from cover-to-cover it shares the quitting insights and wisdom that Joel learned from daily watching and following thousands of cold turkey quitters over past 30 years. Knowledge is power, Jessie!  Why fight and swing in darkness when you can turn on the lights?  Isn't it a bit like trying to land a plane without putting the wheels down or attempting  to build a skyscraper without knowing how?   

As for wanting your wife to quit too.  We fully understand your concerns for her but if smoking claims half of all smokers an average of 13 years early then what are the odds that it won't be the cause of destroying a marriage in which both are addicted to smoking nicotine?  You're looking for a crutch, Jessie, and you don't need any crutches at all to reclaim your mind health and life. 

One of you needs to break free and share with the other the beauty of again residing inside a calm and comfortable nicoitne free mind. She cannot quit for her doctor, friend, child or spouse.  It must be her loving gift to herself or a natrual sense of deprivation will doom her quit from the start. 

Jessie, we strongly encourage you to master a basic understanding of your chemical dependency upon smoking nicotine.  You'll never be stronger than nicotine but then you don't need to be as it's only a chemical with an I.Q. of zero.  Your greatest weapon is and always has been your vastly superior intelligence but only if put to work.

John   (free and healing for six years, six months and 22 days during which I've avoided spending  $19,878.20 on smoked nicotine).