There can be no disputing the fact that smoking is a costly habit. Every year, it seems, new excise taxes are ladled onto the price of a pack of cigarettes. Smokers also pay more for their health insurance premiums – never mind the physical toll incurred by the human body from tobacco consumption, including cancer, respiratory and cardio-pulmonary diseases.

Seeking Other Paths

Unless one can muster up an incredible amount of willpower, one will also have to pay the piper for whatever sort of stop-smoking program one chooses. E-cigarettes, gum and patches all come at a cost comparable to buying nicotine a pack at a time. Prescription drug remedies can be even more expensive than those things. As such, many smokers opt for alternative or homeopathic remedies instead of nicotine-replacement therapies.

Count Backwards From a Hundred…

One of the most popular methods used to quit smoking involves hypnotism. Some experts still regard this practice as somewhat of a placebo, but it has been successfully used to help people kick the habit. Hypnotism has also been used to help people relieve themselves of other addictions, including illicit drugs and alcohol, and to ferret out deep-seeded psychological problems. FDA approved or not, many people have been cured through hypnotism, and will swear by it.

Acupuncture – the therapeutic insertion of needles into various points on the body – has also been touted as an effective method of escaping the clutches of nicotine addiction. Again, there isn’t much beyond circumstantial or anecdotal evidence to suggest that this works at all (and even less data to ascertain why it works), but millions of people swear by it. When it comes to breaking the grip of nicotine, such probing questions are best left to the academics. To those who practice and adhere to these methods, it is a moot point at best.

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