Smoking Cessation

Smoking cessation, usually called quitting smoking, is the process of discontinuing tobacco smoking; because tobacco smoke contains the addictive substance nicotine, nicotine withdrawal often makes quitting difficult. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death and a global public health concern, most commonly leading to diseases of the heart and lungs, and smoking cessation significantly reduces the risk of dying from smoking-related disease, with the risk of heart attack in a smoker dropping by half after one year of cessation and the risk of lung cancer dropping by half over ten years. Many strategies are used for smoking cessation, including quitting abruptly without assistance, cutting down and then quitting, behavioral counseling, and medications such as bupropion, cytisine, nicotine replacement therapy or varenicline; most smokers who try to quit do so without assistance, but only three to six percent of unassisted attempts succeed long term, while a combination of behavioral counseling with medication is more effective than either alone, with roughly twenty percent of people who quit with both remaining nonsmokers a year later compared with twelve percent who used no medication.