Is anyone else addicted to their nicotine replacement therapy of choice?

[tridim]

I'm very addicted to Commit lozenges and have been for about 12 months. It's not the danger that I'm worried about (there is none because they don't cause mouth/throat cancer), it's the cost. I spend much more on lozenges than I did for cigarettes. I look forward to my lozenge fix as much or more than I did with cigarettes. They're very addictive.

Here's my beef. GlaxoSmithKline makes an addictive product that is criminally overpriced and a monopoly. As far as I know there are no generic versions of nicotine lozenges. Even if there were, they would be priced only a few dollars cheaper than the name brand, and still grossly overpriced. How can this be legal?

Anyone can make a product with caffeine in it, but only a big-pharm corporation like GSK can make nicotine lozenges? I'd really like to see the profit margin on these things. My guess is that it costs pennies to make each lozenge, but they sell for about 75 cents each. Criminal IMO.

[MuseRider]

1. Damned addictive

but as you say, much better than cigarettes.

Try switching to the gum, maybe that is better.

Been there, still kind of there. Killer.

[caledesi]

9. Used to do the gum before the lozenges...it is really hard on your

teeth.

[MuseRider]

14. I was thinking though

that it would be easier to get off of than the lozenges. I don't know. I do know an awful lot of people addicted to the lozenges.

[5X]

2. Still using the generic version of the gum after ...

two years. I spend about the same as I did on cigs.

[C_U_L8R]

3. UGh

I tried quitting smoking so many times....
and the real problem was Nicorette.
That stuff is evil... pure nicotine chemical
dose$$$ to keep you perpetually in it's claws.
It was awful. It wasn't until I gave up cold
turkey that I even began to shake off
the bad habit.... and it's now been
one year this month without a smoke.
Phew.

After years of trying to quit...
I really do suggest going cold turkey.
It was REALLY tough for a few weeks.
I mean agonizing... but once you break
through and kick it... you will feel
so much better... and you won't
be stuffing Glaxo's pockets with your
hard earned savings.

[porphyrian]

6. Cold turkey is how I quit smoking.

If you really want to quit, but aren't having any luck, try this:

Give yourself a very comfortable time span to a quitting date. During that time, you can smoke as much as you like. However, when the quitting date comes, you stop smoking to see how long you can go without it, like a contest or something. That takes the pressure off if you fuck up, but if you do, set another date. If you can make it a few weeks, you'll be past the addiction and you'll become distinctly aware of all the times you would normally go smoke.

I gave myself a year, and haven't smoked since (which is now approaching 8 years, I believe). Even though I never called it quitting, after two weeks I knew I was quit when I went to a bar with some friends and didn't smoke.

[RumpusCat]

28. this 'quit date' method worked for me

I told myself at the beginning of summer that I was going to quit smoking on Oct 1st, as that's when it's getting cold up here and it'll be less desirable to go outside and smoke. All summer I thought about the looming date, but didn't cut down on smoking at all. I know it's only been a month, and it really was an agonizing week or so, but I feel like I don't even want cigarettes anymore. It's a cleaner break than the weaning method (didn't work for me) or substitues (tasted gross, IMHO).

[porphyrian]

37. You're past the physical addiction. It's smooth sailing from there.

I found that the thing I missed most, and still do almost a decade later, is flicking the ash off. Sometimes I'll offer to hold my friends' cigarette while they're doing something just so I can flick the ash.

[waiting for hope]

4. Unfortunately, I've tried

the gum, patch and lozenges and all of them have made either sick or have freakish nightmares to the point I couldn't sleep. I feel pretty confident (or paranoid) that there is a "magic pill" out there to cure most addictions but :tinfoilhat: who am I to say that the drug companies are only out for huge profits....so I continue to smoke as a resident of the great tobacco state of North Carolina.

[janx]

29. HA

The patch is the one that causes the freakish nightmares, but I've had some interesting dreams wearing it as well!

You can take it off before you go to sleep and put it back on the next morning though. That helps a little. ;-)

[w8liftinglady]

5. I switched to cigars-the fruity kind

..and believe it or not,I don't inhale.I still get the nicotine buzz,though.

[complain jane]

19. vanilla or honey flavored ones are good too, but

only the pricier ones, I don't like the little thin cheap ones.

[caledesi]

7. I quit smoking 8 years ago! Addicted big time. Love my Commit

fix. I don't worry about it bec I tried fervently to quit about 10 times (cigs) and couldn't do it. Nicotene replacement saved my life. I just can't feel guilty about it.

Never pay full price. Get them on Ebay and now I even have a "contact." $26 (72 pieces) includes shipping...paypal.

PM me if you want to order from my "connection."

Also, with the way cigarettes have increased in price, Commits are cheaper.

Peace

[tridim]

16. I pay $70 for 168 pieces at Costco, best price I've found

That comes out to about $4.16 per day (ten lozenges a day). I spent about $2.00 per day on cigarettes. That's why I'm upset.

[Hubert Flottz]

21. $4.16 a day is a little less than $80,000.00 for a bypass.

Nicotine causes your blood to thicken and it will plug up your coronary arteries, it will also cause blood clots. Take it from me, the blood clots in the coronary arteries(heart attacks)HURT like hell. Some people don't live to tell you about it.

The doctor told me not to use any form of nicotine, so I had no choice, but to use the Wellbutrin. I thought it would be really hard to quit without BOTH the pills and the patches, but I did fine. I didn't want to quit, I HAD TO! Two heart attacks the same day made a believer outta' me.

[A Simple Game]

23. I got a bargain, mine only cost about 60,000.

Quad bypass, 5 blockages, died once in recovery room, 10 days in hospital.

Happened 6 months ago, haven't smoked since. Cold turkey.

I'm sure it would be easier to quit before the heart attack!

[Hubert Flottz]

26. Damn did you get a geat deal or whut?

I guess mine was a little extra to pay for the stroke I had during the bypass. But I didn't quit then. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I came home smokin' one in the car. I went on smoking for another six years and had two heart attacks the same day. It hurt so damned bad last time I decided, never again!

I have to go next week and get some more stints, before I have the big one. Been having a little congestive heart failure for the past 6 months and boy is that ever fun. Sleeping sitting up, so you don't drown in your own juices, is a real bitch!

The truth is, them things will kill your ass! I wish the Marlboro man would have told me how it was really going to be, when I was a kid. Maybe next life, I'll know better. My luck I'll come back as a freakin' tobacco worm.

[caledesi]

32. Funny, my blood happens to be "thin" so I guess that is why I

am still alive!

[caledesi]

31. $2.00 for cigarettes? Up North, they are paying at least $3.50/pack. nt

[tridim]

35. It was $2.50/pack and I smoked about 16 a day n/t

It's now about $3.75/pack.

[eggman67]

8. Same problem here

Hooked on commit for about 6 months, went back to smoking because it was actually cheaper.

[Hubert Flottz]

10. Get you some crazy pills!

Wellbutrin(Zyban)they worked for me. I'd smoked for over 40 years. I quit last December and haven't smoked one since. I got hooked on the patches too, when I tried them before. I quit cigarettes for 8 months once before, but when I quit using the patches that time I couldn't do without a smoke. The pills give you 24 hour relief if you take two a day as prescribed. It's not like how your patch loses strength overnight and you wake up wanting a smoke.

[tridim]

13. I tried Zyban

It turned me into a raving lunatic. It was so scary I had to quit.

Technically the lonzenges are working, I haven't smoked at all during those 12 months. I simply replaced one addiction with another more expensive, but safer addiction.

[Hubert Flottz]

17. Hell, I was already crazy, so I handled it okay.

They are anti-depressants. The only side effect I noticed was tinnitus.

[eggman67]

20. Had that problem too

Couldn't sleep, became almost suicidally depressed. Friends intervened.

[_testify_]

30. I took Zyban for a little over a month

but then I developed hives from it. Not fun. I also had the weird ear-problems many report. However, that month was enough for me to quit. The pills really worked - I tried smoking on like day two of the pill regimen and I couldn't! I haven't had a smoke in almost 6 months. I can't wait till it's been a year!

[firefox]

11. Vaporizers

One of the great gifts the cannabis community will give the world is vaporizers. It is a way of reducing the harm of tobacco use and an alternative that will at least break the habit of lighting up.

Vaporizing bulk tobacco would really hurt the cigarette sales and the other alternatives that still deliver nicotine. That is why there is no discussion of them on television. If I were in charge of the tobacco settlement money and charged with reducing the harms of tobacco use, I would immediately set out to educate the country/world on the use of vaporizers.

Of course, I would Free Cannabis For Everyone and believe it or not that would help reduce the harms of tobacco. Cannabis is useful for breaking alcohol addiction and doctor's in California can recommend it for that and I would think that they also could recommend it for tobacco use. But more than that, it would would settle what is wasting a lot of energy in what needs to be an informational campaign in a plan of harm reduction by the health care system. It will be interesting to see what science says that cannabis does medically to help the health of those that use tobacco. It may help reduce cancer. It should help dialate passageways that tobacco restricts. Well, we will have to wait and see on that as the research comes in. Damned that prohibition, we should know all of this by now. Double damned the cannabis prohibition, the world should know of vaporizers by now and they should be cheap and widely distributed.

The FBI might list the top ten most wanted, but the government does not dare publish the top ten most abused substances. My opinion is that refined sugar is number one. Tobacco use is probably two. Transfats is probably three. And really after that I would have to say cannabis prohibition needs mentioning because prohibiting is an abuse of a substance that has much to offer mankind. It just happens to be an abuse by government instead of abuse by use. It is more like abuse by nonuse.

Well, anyway if anyone has a list of the top ten abused substances in America, I am always looking for information.

It would be interesting to do a word search everyday at the online sites of Los Angeles Times and NTY and Washington Post and see how long it takes for the word "vaporizer" to appear. I bet two doughnuts when it first appears it won't concern "drug" use or mention it as a device to reduce harm.

[adigal]

12. I used the patch, quit 1000 times, went to www.quitnet.com

and the support and suggestions there helped me quit. One year and 5 months ago. Now I just have to lose the 35 pounds I put on - I'm working on it.

Live Link:

www.quitnet.com

Go to the Community, then Forums, then Quitstop. Awesome site.

[Dora]

15. Wellbutrin/Zyban

Seriously, give it a shot.

I was prescribed Wellbutrin SR (SR=sustained release) one summer, and a month later I quit smoking. This was after smoking for fifteen years. I quit once, but never truly kicked the habit, and started smoking again when I moved to Texas. By the time I got to my last year of grad school, I was smoking a carton a week, and had resigned myself to being a lifetime smoker.

fast-forward to 2003: my husband and I decided we were ready to start a family, but we did not want to be fighting the cigarette habit at the same time as conception/infancy/etc.

I quit smoking with the help of Wellbutrin. My husband did it cold turkey, but he's just better at that stuff than I am.

I strongly recommend that you try the Wellbutrin. The reason I suggest that, rather than Zyban, is because some insurance cos won't cover Zyban, but they will cover Wellbutrin. They're the same drug, manufactured by the same company, but they're marketed for different uses. Wellbutrin is marketed as an anti-depressant - so get yourself in to your family doctor or a psychiatrist and ask if you can have an Rx for this stuff. It really does help. You should probably take it for a year or so before quitting the med, btw.

Good luck!

[FooFootheSnoo]

18. that happened to me with the gum

But, hang in there!! Don't go back to smoking!! A year is a long time. Try the gum, I think it would be cheaper and it does provide quite a "kick". There are a lot of supermarkets and drug stores that sell generic versions of the gum. Good luck.

[AirmensMom]

22. I quit with the gum.

But I didn't get a chance to get addicted to it. You have to "park" it in your cheek ... and the concentration of nicotine irritated my gums. After a week of that, I was afraid my teeth were going to fall out! So I made an emergency appointment with my dentist and told him my teeth were falling out. He said my gums were just irritated and they'd be fine when I stopped the gum. I didn't want to go through that again and it was enough motivation for me to quit the gum and I never again had a cigarette. I spent 7 years in braces when I was a kid and the thought of losing my teeth if pretty frightening. Funny -- I wasn't that afraid of losing my lungs. :shrug:

My sister, on the other hand, has been addicted to the gum for over 2 years. She tried to go to a lower dosage and just chewed more, so that didn't work. She still struggles.

Wellbutrin worked for my brother, as far as I know (haven't seen him for a while, so I only know what he tells me).

Good luck. I know it's a struggle. :hug:

[Jed Dilligan]

24. How are you so certain...

They don't cause mouth or throat cancer?

[tridim]

36. Because nicotine doesn't cause cancer

and I've read it on several official sites including the Nicorette site. I doubt they'd lie about something so serious and risk getting sued.

[WiseButAngrySara]

25. Two people that are addicted to nicotene gum: Ann Coulter and Imus! n/t

[hatrack]

27. I was, finally kicked but it took a little while

I was using Nicoderm Step 1 patches, and when I finally kicked, here's how I did it:

First of all, used all 14 patches from the two-week box, except when I finished on each day, I stuck the clear plastic panes back on and saved it.

When I got to the end of the two-week period, I went back and reused each patch, one per day. And when I got to the end of the recycled patches, that was it.

I should also mention that I was jogging just about every day during this period - something about getting out and oxygenating myself really seemed to help with the process.

Your mileage may vary, but good luck if you choose to quit.

[moriverrat]

33. Ever heard of Ariva Lozenges?

These lozenges cost about $3.00 a pack (12) the last time I saw them.
They were produced by a tobacco company, this link shows the petition filed by anti-tobacco groups (Tools of Big Pharma?) which had the effect of protecting the Big Pharma monopoly in nicotine placement products, among other things.

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/tobacco/arivafda121801pet.pdf

[Hamlette]

34. complete gum addict...have been for years...

I bought Nicotrol on ebay for $15 for 105 pieces but my "supplier" notified me recently he couldn't get it anymore but could get another generic called Hibitrol or Nicotinell. I'll do that next.

I'd been paying a fortune...thought Costco was a great deal...then I found the generics on ebay. The generics were much cheaper than the name brand...about a third as much.

I did get off the gum a couple of times...once by using the patch but always ended up going back to cigs. I'm very reluctant to try again and just "suck it up" about the price. I figure my habit costs me $15 to $20 a week. I was smoking as much as 2 packs a day so this is MUCH cheaper.

[dddem]

38. No doubt about it

My nicotine replacement therapy became cruising, and I'm so addicted it's not funny! After calculating what I spent on cigarettes a year, I saved what I didn't spend smoking, and went on my first cruise! Of course, I had help - Zyban AND the patch (my husband hasn't had luck with either). I haven't smoked since 1998. Occasionally I get an urge, but it passes. I'm at the point now where I've decided I'd just rather spend my money on other things. I wish you luck - and I'm confident that you'll triumph over the addiction eventually.