Benefits of Nicotine Patch

Let’s discuss the good and bad effects of the nicotine patch.

They are used by millions of people to help them fight nicotine cravings. They’re readily available in major grocery stores and pharmacies across the country and all around the world.

But do they work?

Yes, they do work, or else they wouldn’t be on the market. It’s FDA approved to help people quit. They have been around a long time, and there is a reason for that.

There are some good things about them. Not all the side effects are bad.

See if it works for you. Feel free to experiment.

What they do is supply your body with timed doses of nicotine, every so often. You stick a patch (or part of one) on your shoulder, which is recommended, and it gradually feeds you nicotine.

Once you put on a patch, you refrain from all smoking.

In theory, you should be getting enough from the patch to curb your body’s hunger for more nicotine.

Sounds great, right?

You need to be careful and read the labels, though.

If a person, who only has 10 cigarettes a day (or less) uses a whole patch at once, they might get sick. It’s wise to cut it in half according to how many you have per day on average.

I know people who cut it in quarters.

When I used it, it actually DID work. I bought a supply kit (around $30-50), went home, placed an entire patch on my upper arm, and immediately stopped all smoking.

When you should normally be going through withdrawal, the patch supplies you with the needed nicotine so you don’t feel any of the symptoms.

Honestly, you still think about smoking, because they are such a deep, deep habitual behavior formed that it’s hard NOT to think about them.

But you aren’t scheming for one, either, so it’s manageable.

But the physical is not the be-all-end-all of it, as it’s just a small fraction of the real challenge that lies ahead.

So what’s so bad about it?

I know this from experience.

I made the mistake of sleeping with it still on my body, and that was a huge mistake. I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming in utter terror!

Honestly, it was like living in a horror movie. I woke up scared to go back to sleep many times. Was that worth it to me? Absolutely not!

I ripped it off and started smoking again and thought, “There has got to be a better way! I can’t live with nightmares!”

Maybe if I had taken it off at night when I went to sleep I wouldn’t have had any nightmares.

You do feel queazy and nauseous while on it. That all depends on how much you put on your shoulder to begin with. If you use the whole thing, it might be too much and you’ll get sick.

If you do intend on using it, I’d use a scissors and cut it in small squares. You can always add another small square if one isn’t enough.

The patch isn’t going to change your thinking, though. It’s just going to take the physical withdrawal away. You still have to deal with the psychological cravings.

The biggest, and longest, part of the journey is dealing with the psychological effects.

You’ve smoked in every situation possible, good and bad, happy and sad.

How is the patch going to stop you from smoking if you just got fired? How is it going to stop you if you just won the lottery? It won’t.

I’ve known a few people that used it and gave up on it because it did nothing for the psychological issues they had.

Yes, it curbed their desire to smoke in the short-term, but they still couldn’t get over those emotional situations in which cigarettes were their best friend and the thing to turn to when they needed help.

This is where the patch fails.

The mental addiction is the hardest part. You have to face all those deep habitual behaviors head-on WITHOUT any tobacco of any kind. That means eventually you’ll have to give it up and not wear it any longer.

Again, this works for the physical side effects only. It doesn’t help you cope with work, getting fired, celebrating a newborn baby, or coping with death.

So, feel free to experiment to see if it works for you. It does help millions of people, so I don’t completely discourage it, as it did help me at the beginning.

You’ll most likely see much more success, and fewer nightmares.