Also, I've read the ask.me threads on this issue.

Yes, I did. Twice - the first time it worked really really well, but I relapsed after about two months, because I had done very little psychological preparation. The second time I used it in conjunction with a complete program called Freedom From Smoking (a free online program with support). The structure of that program and the way in which it required me to think through all aspects of the addiction, really commit to quitting, and create a thorough plan for all the trouble spots. Without the program I wouldn't have made it. It's such a complex addiction, and while the drug can help offset the increased anxiety, irritability, and low mood in order to let you focus on quitting, you still have to plan to do the hard work of changing your habits and figuring out how to live in a new way.

However, it's totally possible. I'll be 5 years clean next month after about 13 years of smoking.

(I probably said that same stuff in one of the AxMe threads).

Honestly, Lola_G, I did quit smoking, but I really think I was finally ready to (just so that I could stop quitting, if that makes sense).

However, taking that drug made me react in terrible ways - my partner and sister ended up really worried that I was going to commit suicide, and I know I felt completely and utterly psycho. I've read since then that that's a potential side effect, but when I talked to my doctor about it before I took it, that wasn't really mentioned, and I didn't see anything about it in the research I did before I started. If I knew how I would feel on that drug, I'd rather keep smoking. It was that bad.

I do know a lot of people who didn't have that reaction though, so maybe I was just very very lucky. I also know a good amount of people who took it and didn't quit smoking, so there's that too.

So this is just a data point, and do a bunch more research (especially talking to people) but I hope you quit smoking regardless of how you do it!

And congrats to Miko, that rocks. I've been an ex-smoker for almost 3 years now, after smoking for 16 or 17 years.

Yay! I'll never go back, it's much nicer not smoking for me.

I know I felt completely and utterly psycho

Could that have just been part of quitting smoking? I felt pretty psycho the first couple weeks - wild mood swings, lots of crying, unreasonable anger. But I felt the same way during an earlier cold-turkey attempt.

I found the drug to be so mild as to be unnoticeable, but of course, people react differently.

Congrats to you, too, Sil.

(OT: I didn't take it for smoking, I took it for depression.)

Watch out for anxiety. I had some pretty severe anxiety issues, bordering on hallucinations, while I was on it, and would get mild panic attacks (I mean, they didn't feel mild while I was having them, but they weren't full-blown panic attacks) about an hour after taking a dose.

YMMV, and I don't know what the dosage protocol is for smoking cessation. If it hadn't been for the anxiety issues I'd be singing its praises to high heaven.

And congrats Miko and Sil!

I used it during one of my attempts at quitting, and my feeling was that it did quite a bit to reduce the twitchy compulsive sense of need a smoke, must smoke. I also simultaneously began having random rage attacks over very minor things (like, getting my purse strap caught momentarily on the gear shift lever while getting out of the car leading me to SLAM THE CAR DOOR OVER AND OVER about ten times while panting and grinding my teeth). This was probably the nicotine withdrawal at work, but it is certainly possible to have weird reactions to any of the antidepressants, as others note above.

I didn't use it in my final and (so far) successful quit (seven months clean now, and no way I'm going back)--I relied on the Allen Carr book instead--but I think it's certainly worth trying, in combo with the adjunctive planning that Miko describes.

I found it to be a lovely appetite surpressant and to have actual positive sexual side effects, but I was a bit hepped up, and so. . .kept smoking.

Thanks for the comments so far. I am looking into a lot of different methods but I wanted to get some thoughts from people who have tried it.

I am concerned about the side effects.

I think when I finally commit to quitting, cold turkey is the way for me.

I'm a WEIRD smoker. I wake up not wanting to smoke (this will be the day that I quit). I don't smoke and then I get home and chain smoke until bed. I don't have any cravings during the day and only since I developed this habit have I had any sort of nicotine withdrawal.

Prior to this, I only smoked "when I drank".

Now I rarely drink and I smoke all the time.

I heart smoking. I know how terrible it is but I don't have any desire to quit.

That said, I have a huge DESIRE to quit.

The anti-smoking commercials don't scare me. Except the one (maybe the only show it in New York) of the guy who got cancer at 39 and has the trach hole.

It weird because I always had this timeline...I'll quit after college, I will quit after law school, I'll quit before I'm 30.

Ultimately, I know I will quit when I have a family but who knows when and if that will ever be.

Also, my SO smokes. So there's that too.

I took it to quit smoking and immediately started into completely debilitating panic attacks. These were full blown and really bad; much worse than my normal panic attacks. Sure, I didn't want to smoke but on the other hand I didn't want to do anything else, either, except curl up in a small fetal ball in the back of my closet. YM, of course, MV, but I will also add that when my son went on Straterra for ADD, he became suicidally depressed. The psychiatrist told me that if she had known how badly I reacted to Wellbutrin, she would never have put him on Straterra. Of course, she didn't ask, and how was I to know it was relevant? But anyway, it seems to be a big genetic thing, so you might want to ask around your family and see if anyone has reacted badly to wellbutrin or straterra before you shell out any $$ on a prescription. In other quit smoking news, my doctor gave me a scrip for some brand new drug called Chantix that's supposed to be great, so you might want to check that out too.
I haven't filled it yet.

Lola G, check out the program I linked above. Smoking's a complicated addiction, its patterns are highly individual and fit insidiously into anyone's life in any way they'll let it. To beat it, you do have to want to quit, and you have to amplify that want even if it's very small at first. Freedom From Smoking will lead you through a bunch of exercises that help you examine why you do it, when you do it, why you hate it, what it's done to you, what it's going to do to you, what it does to others around you, and why you're going to miss it. Then you gradually start nudging it out of its place in your life.

It's never easy! I spent my entire first couple of days in tears and rather hysterical. Don't underestimate the hardness of it, and go easy on yourself in other ways. The drug, if it works for you, is only a little help along the way, not a magic pill.

I'd advise trying it - if you don't like the way you're reacting, you can stop taking the drug. But don't let fear of the drug alone become another excuse not to try. Withdrawal makes you pretty crazy too, and it's hard to tell what's causing what. Compared to nicotine, Wellbutrin is really mild.

Anyway, they say that it takes people, on average, seven tries to have a successful attempt at quitting. Some manage it in 3 or 4 tries, others in 8 or 10. Each time you make a sincere effort to quit, you learn something that will definitely aid you in predicting pitfalls in your next effort. So at very worst, all quit attempts are good practice for the one that will finally take.

Thanks, Miko. I will check out the link.

Also, does one need to ween themselves off the Wellbutrin?

I am pretty self-aware. If I find that I am feeling suicidal suddenly after taking the drug can I just stop taking it? Or as in the case of the SSRIs do you need to slowly come off of it or suffer debilitating withdrawal from it (I don't want a repeat of my Paxil experience - although I recognize its a completely different class of drugs).

I'd ask your doctor's advice on that.

I smoked a pack a day for 18 years. I have not had a cigarette in 9 years. I know some folks have serious side effects with Zyban but it worked well for me. After taking it for 7 or 8 days I simply stopped wanting to smoke.

I did not wean off of it, but these drugs all affect people in very different ways.

The new drug mgl mentioned is Zyban without the bits that can agitate you or - in my expreience sped me up - probably because I wasn't depressed. As Doc just explained to me.

He said I didn't need it though, because my smoking pattern is much like yours. If I go 16 hours w/o cigs, he said, I'm not physically addicted.

FWIW.

Good luck.

Gah. Must stop smoking.

Good luck to all.

Wellbutrin is considered an "activating" medication, so you'd like to think it might give you some zip, but it can also have a clouding or dumbifying mental effect.

Just to respond to something Miko said earlier, it wasn't the anxiety of quitting smoking that I was experiencing, it was a definite reaction to the drug, which may have been irritated by a few other stresses I had (but who knows).

I'd quit smoking cold turkey previously to that, and experienced the jittery-ness and anger and stress from quitting, but using this drug was a total different thing. I am really, honestly grateful for my partner and sister for keeping such close tabs on me and being understanding. It was something I hope to never, ever experience again, feeling that out of control and psycho. A few months after no longer taking the drug, I still had the crabbiness and some anger issues from quitting smoking but I didn't feel pyscho after that.

Might want to check out deprenyl.