Good luck, Erika! I was up to about 25 American Spirits (a lot stronger than the Camel Lights I had switched from) a day when I quit in 1999. I used the patch, but my success at quitting puts me in the statistical minority - a year or two later I met a public health grad student who was doing a study on it and told me that most people just rip the thing off and start smoking. For me, it was a kind of aversion therapy - when I was around secondhand smoke I would get physically ill, so I had to change my habits. I didn't resume drinking in earnest until Bloomberg banned smoking in bars, and I've never taken up smoking pot again, which has probably helped my relative career success. My big test was last winter in Ljubljana, where everyone chainsmoked everywhere, and I wasn't tempted in the least.
But anyway, Jason is right, if you want to quit you will. I was the most compulsive smoker ever, and now I'm still compulsive but in other ways, including this board. A couple of other details:
-I gained almost 80 pounds after I quit, but lost most of it (I'm still not as skinny as I was an never will be). This isn't inevitable - I just developed a sweet tooth and indulged like crazy, telling myself that I deserved it because I was quitting smoking - this for like 5 years. I'm more careful now.
-I had excellent, long, cinematic dreams while on the patch.
-I did the step-down thing and was a total dick every time I stepped down the nicotine dosage. My temperament is pretty much what it appears to be on the boards (aside from the occasional stupid sidewalk rage freakout that anyone in the NY metro area is going to have now and then), and I almost got into a fistfight over nothing at a Beck concert at Radio City Music Hall.
