The stop-smoking market is huge, from the do-it-yourself treatments to alternative medicine to pharmaceutical medicines. Over the past few years, medications like Chantix (varenicline) and Zyban and Wellbutrin (buproprion) have been used by many people, some successfully, some not.

One problem with these medications is that they seem to have an adverse effect on some people who take them and these can be quite serious. According to a press release issued by the FDA:

These symptoms include changes in behavior, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts and behavior, and attempted suicide.

Now, the FDA has told the manufacturers that they must add new warnings, called Box Warning and develop patient medication guides that outline these risks.

Here is more from the release:

Healthcare professionals should advise patients to stop taking varenicline or bupropion and contact a healthcare provider immediately if they experience agitation, depressed mood, and any changes in behavior that are not typical of nicotine withdrawal, or if they experience suicidal thoughts or behavior.

If you take any of these medications and you have any concerns, please speak with your doctor.

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Image courtesy PhotoXpress.com

I took the smoking cessation pill Chantix and posted about it in May on Blog Fabulous.

 I’m nearing my 700th post on that one blog entry. It’s becoming difficult to scroll down and load up and more and more people are quitting smoking and wanting to share their stories. It’s taking a great deal of time for me to respond to comments.

What do you do when success is nipping at your heals? Well, what I did do is build a new website called . . .

Quit Coping 

Quit coping with smoking. Quit smoking to cope. Cope with your quit.

Chantix is a great tool. Actually, it’s a miracle in pill form if you ask me. But, without cigarettes we smokers are left with few coping skills.

Time to make some new ones some healthier ones.

If you smoke and you want to take back your life and find out what liberation and freedom from your nasty habit feels like come on over to Quit Coping and join the fun.

I am on my fourth week of Chantix, a new smoking cessation prescription drug. If you are a smoker who has ever tried to quit you know the biggest battle can be desire.

To be honest, I didn’t WANT to quit smoking because I loved nearly everything about it. But, someone told my 5-year-old that I was going to die if I continued doing it. Then every flipping time I’d step outside for a smoke break I’d have to smoke through the sobs of my child, “Mommy, I don’t want you to die! Who will be with me when you die?”

Who can stand up to that kind of torture – or even enjoy a cigarette amidst such terrible anguish?

Then, on my Emmaus Walk retreat a few weeks ago, two of the speakers were daughters of women whose mothers had died of lung cancer from smoking. Their anger and grief was palpable. No doubt they were placed on that retreat by God to give me the message, “Ainsley will hate you and grieve intensely if you continue this nasty, selfish habit to the point where you make her watch you die.”

So, obviously, parents don’t really have a right to smoke in good conscience. Not even if they are totally addicted and love nearly everything about it.

I’ve struggled terribly with quitting though. I have tried acupuncture, nasty flavorless gum that gets stuck in my teeth, nicotine patches, sunflower seeds, Pavloving myself by snapping myself on the wrist with a rubber band, cold turkey, writing “I am not a smoker” on my wrists, self-loathing, Wellbutrin, electronic solitaire, buying only single cigarillos, prayer, faith and giving myself a ton of crap for my weakness.

Through every single method I still felt like I had angry Turrets Syndrome. It just felt awful. The whole thing - the physical withdrawal, the psychological withdrawal, the missing of my best friend (cigarettes) who had seen me through every up and down, the missing of my rebelliousness in persisting to do something bad for myself, even missing my adolescent sense of immortality – all of it made me want to freak out and bitch and moan and curse.

Chantix – say it with me, chant it, and scream it from the top of buildings – Chantix! It is literally some kind of miracle for smokers. Real smokers. Not social smokers or “can I bum a drag” smokers. But, people who derive at least part of their identity from smoking, should run to the doctor immediately and demand a prescription.

Not only am I cured of physically craving nicotine and whatever other 200 toxic chemicals are in cigarettes, but I am not morning the loss of the part of me that loves smoking. I am not thinking about cigarettes in an obsessive forlorn way. I am not thinking about them at all in fact. When I am overly stressed or bored or tired or anxious or about to have a minor freak out I am not thinking, “I need a cigarette.”

I’m not mourning my loss of smoking, my loss of freedom, my loss of my best friend or my loss of identity as a smoker. I am just going about my business as if I were always a “non-smoker.”

I am a non-smoker.  

No thanks, I don’t smoke. I can seriously, for the first-time ever, see myself saying this and not falling over laughing hysterically with a smoke in my right hand.  

I feel like I’ve been set free. I feel like for the first time since I was about 13 years old those shackles have been removed. I am not chained to the idea that I must always have a pack of cigarettes with me, or that I must always have $5 on me to be able to buy some. I am totally free.

Chantix retails for about $100 a month. But, my insurance actually covered it so it only cost me $50. Considering the “sin tax” on smoking a pack a day this is a total bargain! Lots of people only need it for one month. But, I am a known cheater so I’ll take it for the full recommended three months.  

Seriously, if you’re like me and you’ve loved your cigarettes, but you feel like you must stop smoking. Try Chantix. It is a real life miracle drug.

And man, I smell so good now!