This dismal rate is understandable, experts say, because smoking is a complex physical and psychological addiction. Unlike other addictions that destroy lives, smoking is compatible with high-level functioning. At its core is nicotine, a drug that irresistibly and paradoxically stimulates and tranquilizes, energizes and calms. Still, experts believe the quit rate could be improved if more smokers took advantage of treatments and counseling. There is also a new option, the first non-nicotine medication, an antidepressant called Zyban.
Most people just go cold turkey and try to tough it out.
Finishing a chore or an assignment made Karen Bunnell want a cigarette. Using a smoke as a reward was a pattern she started back when she was 12. She and a girlfriend would sneak off and puff away in the woods of Winston-Salem, N.C., a city that drew its lifeblood from tobacco. Years later, Bunnell regretted getting hooked. The ultimate motivator was watching her father have heart bypass surgery for arteries hardened by decades of smoking.