They help quitting since you only have to deal with the physical act of smoking (which in of itself is a very ingrained act) without dealing with nicotine withdrawal

There's two separate addictions going on with smoking: habit and chemical. What patches, nicotine gum, etc are trying to help people do is tackle them separately.

This means you can focus on getting out of the habit of lighting up after a coffee, or after a meal, or whatever triggers you had, while delaying the chemical withdrawal which seriously messes with your head until later. Tackling the two seperately is easier for many people.

With that said, patches don't work for everyone, and I hope you find the cessation aid (if any) that works for you. Quitting smoking is an absolute bitch.

For me personally, the most helpful aid was nicotine gum, and then swapping out the nicotine gum for normal gum once I was confident I'd kicked the habit part and could focus on the chemical withdrawal.

Nicotine patches are what finally allowed me to quit. I quit over the course of probably about 5 years, trying all sorts of methods.

I went to vaping, that killed my dependence on the taste of cigarettes by changing the flavours constantly. I went from 12mg liquid to 3mg liquid, but then when I found nicotine salts went back to 10mg but lowered my intake significantly.

After a while, I moved to nicotine pouches, to get rid of the mental requirement to inhale nicotine (and also because I was no longer able to vape indoors). They're not the nicest things when you're starting, but they give a full hour of relief and it's very easy to keep track of how much you're using compared to vaping. I started on the stronger ones, and got myself to the point where I was having 9mg pouches 2-3 times per day.

Last New Year's Eve, I broke my leg rushing out of my house. The nurses at the hospital weren't sure if the pouches were going to be safe before the surgery (it's different dosage than they'd expect, and it's synthetic nicotine) so they put me on patches. And I found that they worked perfectly, so after being discharged I followed the process outlined on the box for them - 21mg/day for 2 weeks, 14mg/day for 1 week, 7mg/day for 1 week, although for that last one I stopped after four days, as my partner was going away for a few days and it made sense to get through the worst of the withdrawal when there was nobody around for me to be snappy with.

So yeah, the point of nicotine patches are to quit, but in my experience they were best as a "last step" rather than a 1 fix solution. Quitting an addiction is not easy, and there's absolutely no shame in taking a long time to do it. In all honesty, if I hadn't been sent to hospital that night, I'd still be shoving nicotine pouches in my face. At this point I've not had any nicotine for 11 weeks, and the cravings stop being so intense, but I do still get them after meals.

At every step in the process, it looked to those around me that whatever I was using was going to be used forever. I didn't set any lofty goals, I vaped for several years, used the pouches for a full year, and even in my own mentality thought that "if I do this the rest of my life, I'm okay with that". Usually moving onto the next method was because it was cheaper, not because I wanted to quit. But it's worked out in the end I guess.

Sorry for rambling, I kinda missed the point of the original post, but I'm hoping this story might help someone if they're trying to quit or at least help people reframe their idea on what quitting can look like.

Well, they replace nicotine intake.

You get a measured, stable dose over time. In theory, once you get used to that, you step down the dosage until it's low enough that you can quit without the worst withdrawal experiences.

Now, you have to be ready to quit, you have to be willing to get past the habitual and psychological side of smoking, and you have to accept that there will be some withdrawal symptoms along the way. But they can and do work.

Me? When I quit with patches the first time I quit for an extended time, they worked fine. I was younger, hadn't been smoking super long, and had things to keep me busy in a way I didn't when I quit this most recent time. In between starting to smoke again and quitting this time, I tried patches multiple times without success because of the psychological, social, and habitual influences.

You get out of patches what you bring to the situation.

They can also be very useful for someone that is medically barred from smoking, but not from nicotine itself, or for short term use in most situations.

Side note: I still miss some parts of smoking. But I don't miss addiction, or the physical effects of smoking and the effects of nicotine.

If you aren't ready to quit smoking, patches are damn near as expensive, depending on where you live. Some places they're more expensive than cheap tobacco and rolling your own. So you're throwing money away for next to no real gain. You're better off setting the money aside for when you're ready to quit.

In the UK, the ads for these patches also say "requires willpower". From what you've written, it sounds like that's the part of the process you need to find in you. Good luck!

It's supposed to take away the physical nicotine cravings so you can focus on the mental battle of not craving a cigarette.

Helps killing the habit, not the nicotine craving. Because you are not smoking, even if you have nicotine in your system at least your lungs aren't dealing with all the tar an whatever other junk you inhale

Nicotine patch is meant for help you quit smoking altogether, and not an alternative to smoking cigarettes. You need to decide to quit and take those patches, it help you slowly decrease the dose to not give you the intense withdrawal.

They are really useful if you're in hospital and too unwell to go out for a cigarette.

They don't work for everyone. I know quite a few friends that have just eaten cold turkey and quit.

Hey @turnerpike20@lemmy.ml OP, I saw this on Reddit and thought of you:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1dluz2r/comment/l9rlakb

That I was more addicted to the breaks and deep breathing than I was to the nicotine.

...

Yes! Because what do you do when you smoke? You go outside and take intentional deep breaths and it relaxes you. So, I kept my full routine of breaks when I needed, went outside and took intentional deep breaths. Just this time without a cigarette. Quitting was SO EASY this time and zero cravings. Because it turns out, she was right.