A friend wrote something interesting and I've stolen bits of it.
There are some hard, unavoidable facts about quitting smoking.
For every hundred people that make a commitment to stop less than 10 will succeed. The figure varies and has been used as propaganda by all sides but it is generally acknowledged as 6-7%
Some parties will claim nearer 10% and point the finger of 5% at their opposition claiming ‘twice as successful’ and so on but it all boils down to the apocryphal fleas arguing over the ownership of the dog - the big picture is being missed.
Of the 10 that succeed there will be a tiny percentage who, through sheer determination, have dragged their quit to 12 months despite fighting their demons every day.
The big question is how we get more of a balance on the scales of quitting. Is there a way to make the whole process less lop-sided?
What is clear is that our current approach does not work irrespective of what tv adverts might lead us to think otherwise. It may while away many an hour discussing which topical quit product is better than the next but the statistics paint a stark picture.
Interestingly, new products produce better results than old ones but only for a short time. Zyban performance has plummeted, champix is doing the same.
Do we ever stop and wonder why, if nicotine gum works then why did they need to invent the patch? Well okay, maybe some people don’t like chewing gum, fair enough. But if the patch works, why did they invent the lozenge? And what is the difference, really, between the lozenge and the microtab?
If all these products do what they are supposed to do – which is to deliver nicotine a different way, so there is no urge to smoke tobacco – why does anyone need a spray? And the latest nicotine product from GlaxoSmithKline is the nicotine strip! Surely that’s SLOWER than the spray? Are we going backwards in development now?
Products need to be reinvented so that we’ll buy them, it’s that simple. It’s the same with kitchen cleaners and it’s the same with stop smoking stuff.
The cold hard truth is that in the 6-7% who make it to a year there are CT, NRT, Champix etc quitters. What they have in common is not how they quit but simply the fact that they’re STILL quit.
What they also have in common is no wish to smoke.
At some point in their quit, very often at the very start, they lost the desire to smoke and that is what every quitter needs to be striving for.
It's worth remembering that stopping tobacco, to some degree, involves emotional and physical discomfort no matter what method is used.
It would be a fabulous experiment to really investigate those thousands of 'one in tens' and see is there's a measurable cause of their number.
Written by
austinlegro
11 Years Smoke Free
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It's a good point Austin. In the end, it all comes down to that lightbulb moment doesn't it? The means and method are largely immaterial (the best NRT in the world can't give anyone synthetic willpower).
I feel like I heard a great joke but didn't quite understand the punch line :confused:
Are you saying forget the method and look at the person? If that is the case I still don't see what that will achieve and what it will tell you.
Maybe I'm being a dumbo
You could never be a dumbo Karri
I think what Austin is saying is that as only approximately 1 in 10 of all quits are successful, and that those 1 in 10 successful quits are achieved though a wide variety of methods, it would be useful to try to find a way to establish what it is that those successful quitters have in common. If that makes any sense...
I think what Austin is saying is that as only approximately 1 in 10 of all quits are successful, and that those 1 in 10 successful quits are achieved though a wide variety of methods, it would be useful to try to find a way to establish what it is that those successful quitters have in common. If that makes any sense...
I'm secretly hoping it has something to do with cheese, or failing that perhaps a quit-smoking gene?
I'm secretly hoping it has something to do with cheese, or failing that perhaps a quit-smoking gene?
You could have something there. I read an article recently about the DNA modern humans share with Neanderthal humans and there was some very interesting stuff about what affect Neanderthal DNA seems to have had on modern human populations. Some of it was good, but some wasn't (the mix of DNA makes us more susceptible to some diseases for example). One particularly interesting thing was that the genetic mix apparently has a connection with our propensity to become addicted to nicotine. I didn't quite grasps the ins and outs but it was a fascinating read.
I can take a door off as we need lots of cheese to succeed, so good cheese board happening, and will bring a bottle or three, although not allowed red wine, it turns me into Miranda , she's not nice my hubby says.
I do not agree necessarily with some of it-I do not agree that the effectiveness of Champix is 'plummeting' that is just silly...
Plummeting is quite a nice word though? Pfizer went to distribution with a success rate of 44%, more recent studies ‘suggest’ 15% and the NHS’s own 60 week statistics show 6% for those following a programme . As the NHS only prescribe Champix or NRT there’s scope for adjustment but it’s far from 15%
Zyban did the same thing. New methods achieve better success than old methods until they in turn become old methods. I guess if you want it to work it often does. There’s an entire branch of ‘medicine’ based on that!
Now I have thought about this I just want to say hmmmmm.
I don't believe it is actually a "fact" that less than 10 out of 100 people will succeed in quitting smoking. Even less believable is that these 10 don't all make it to a year. I have to ask what success is actually being measured against in both these figures. Is someone who quits for a week still classed as a successful quitter?
Sorry, the original post referred to a year, or 60 weeks as there’s good data available. I know that there’s no definition of when you've quit. It’s 12 weeks if you’re selling something but it’s a year if you’re buying life insurance, either way, it’s a nice round number.
Surely the idea is for smokers to stop forever. Marketing anything that only works for a short period of time is not cricket is it?
All these surveys and percentages are in my humble opinion a lot of nonsense. Unless you actually sit and survey the entire population there will never be a survey with a true reflection. You often see products claiming 8/10 people prefer coke to Pepsi. It is probably true that out of the 10 people they asked 8 did prefer coke. However, if they had asked another 10 people 8 may have preferred Pepsi. Results can change because they are random and depend on who happens to be around at the time you ask.
I couldn't agree more. Manipulation of results, exclusion of ‘non-suitable subjects’, cherry picking of data and so on is what produces the bizarre claims we see every day. It’s much easier to stand back and look at the bigger picture, ignore the hype, the methods, the lies and the outlandish claims and just see who quits for a year. The sample size for that is considerable and I guess that’s why it’s difficult to ignore it. It’s about 6% but one in ten has a nicer ring?
There is no gene or any other magical reason why people are successful at quitting. Isn't the true beauty that anyone can do it if they really want to. If you start telling is that only people with 3 noses are likely to be successful then those with 1 nose might as well pack up and go home. ..
can someone hold my coat while I climb of my soap box
Isn't this my whole point? If anyone can do it, why don’t they? What’s special about the 6 or so percent? We know it’s not the choice of drug or method but is it something tangible?
Maybe it’s not the one in ten, maybe it’s the nine that fail that need looking at?
The relapse curve is nearly vertical, Stoptober reminded us of that. Maybe knowledge of why 6 month plus quitters leap from the wagon would be valuable?
Remember the thread - Data from 2012 Jan quitters.
This forum had a 38% quit rate.
This forum of course is particularly motivated, but i do remember that there was no difference in success rate when we compared NRT, cold turkey or champix.
One interesting thing I remember - women preferred NRT and men cold turkey.
...you really do have to either be an idiot or hate yourself somehow to carry on smoking...
I wouldn't go quite that far.
We've all been there. We've all stubbed out our last fag and been crawling the walls five minutes later.
The idea of any real survey of long-term quitters is, of course, pie in the sky. No-one who has the budget would have the interest in doing the research as it's unlikely to be profitable. I would also expect it to be uncomfortable for quite a few companies to start talking about 60 week figures without somehow throwing a large blanket over the big grey thing with a trunk lurking in the corner...
Also, we know from our own experiences that different things work for different people to turn a previous failure to a success.
Personally I still think it's that change of heart that can be catalysed by many things. For some it's knowledge, for others even a change in their quit method.
My gut feeling is that 6% may just be the best we can hope for as it's remained a constant figure for so long despite many years of quit smoking campaigns.
I would be interested in knowing whether the success rate changed according to age.
My gut instinct says it would. Older smokers have more health reasons to quit and to stay quit.
The effect of smoking became very obvious to me when I got over 40.
They're also likely to have tried to quit before and failed. That might mean they've learnt by past mistakes and will avoid the traps set!
I do agree with you Austinlegro: it's difficult to trust any info/claims made by companies who have a vested interest in selling their products. The NHS data putting the success rate at 6% is alarmingly low though isn't it.
I am however cheered by Nonico's 38% quit rate on this forum. A small sample but it's a real chicken and egg thing again. Are the people who join this forum more committed than the norm taking time to join etc and thus more likely to suceed anyway or is it the forum itself that keeps people motivated and then they become more likely to succeed.
I know it's helped me enormously so I would suspect the latter. If that is the case it begs the question 'Why has the NHS not got such a forum?'
Being part of the 6% is a massive and rewarding challenge and if you succeed you should be proud!! I always looked on the rate as an incentive not a deterent.
I guess the 6% figure will increase dramatically due to the e-cig (OH is in month 3 with the e-cig). It seems to be a great stepping stone to stopping altogether (although the Welsh gov't want it banished to the smoking shelter!!)
I don't think the percentage numbers matter to anyone. I will win or lose/ succeed or fail according to my own desire, and determination to be a non smoker. In other words my outcome is not predetermined or foreshadowed by any statistic nor do I think that any person should take in to account those numbers when making a decision to quit.
After all, if we took the odds into account then there wouldn't be anyone buying lottery tickets either but we do because we know somebody is going to win right?
I could care less what the percentage rate is for success or failure. I'm with Karri, the numbers would change with each group polled. I do think there is a right and ready time as well as a wrong and not ready time for each person who has any addiction. That said, if there are products marketed to help people achieve success then by all means use them.
I truly feel that if I had tried the Champix last year when I was here then I probably would have had better success simply because Chantix does what it is designed to do which increases my odds of not lighting up.
I have found this thread rather interesting - more from an analytical viewpoint than anything else since obviously we all own our quits and therefore the success or otherwise of our efforts
BUT
If 100 smokers are determined to quit and only 6% a year make it then applying an assumption that the balance continue their efforts within 11 years over half will be smoke free...
Now if you are a glass half full kind of person - that means if you stick at it you have a great chance of success and this is without incorporating the benefits attached to attempted quits which, whilst judged failures, bring benefits
I guess the 6% figure will increase dramatically due to the e-cig (OH is in month 3 with the e-cig). It seems to be a great stepping stone to stopping altogether (although the Welsh gov't want it banished to the smoking shelter!!)
:confused:
It'll be interesting to see where this ECig thing goes. I have my own thoughts but I'm not sharing...
I think the statistics are fascinating but I'm neither a glass half full or half empty person, I'm a "wrong size glass" person and I like to 'know' what's going on and hate taking anything for granted.
Modern life makes one quite cynical.
It's like on Facebook when 'friends' start posting rubbish that 30 seconds on snopes puts to rights yet months down the line seems to have become perceived knowledge!
I guess some people just absorb what they're fed without ever questioning things...
Take 'Stoptober' and the infamous "five times more likely..."
"More likely than what?" I thought.
A bit of searching found the very report that the whole campaign was based on and we're all capable of reading it.
What I found truly fascinating was not that only 6% are still quit at 60 weeks but that the figures for 12 weeks are 8%.
Call me weird but if I was still a smoker and someone told me that I only had to quit for 3 months to statistically quit for good then that makes the challenge easier not harder. I wouldn't care about the 92% that didn't make it that far!
Of course, it's still slightly removed from my initial point - is there a common link between all these people?
...I assume that is why Stoptober lasts for 28 days.
No.
Stoptober is based on the statement, "The prognosis for permanent cessation improves the longer cessation continues and improves five-fold in the first 4 weeks." ie stop for 28 days and you're five times more likely.
the data is used by the NHS but not created by them.
The full NHS smoking cessation programme lasts longer than 28 days (12 weeks locally- not sure if it is the same nationwide?)
I suppose the rationale behind the Stoptober 28 day thing and similar is that if you can get a bunch of smokers to quit for a full 4 weeks there's a reasonable chance that at least some of them will decide to stay quit. Plus, it's easier and cheaper to produce a 4 week 'quiitting' hand-out chart as an incentive to those taking part than it would be to produce something more elaborate.
The pregnancy v not pregnant stats are interesting. Logic would have made me presume the combination of discovering you're in the pudding club and morning sickness would be sufficient to stop you smoking but apparently not. Strange...
Mind you, going back to when I was born (1964) just about everyone smoked, pregnant or not. Indeed, one of my best friend's mum not only smoked throughout her pregnancy, she also drank champagne like it was going out of fashion (she and my friend's father ran a night-club/restaurant). She even drunk fizz during her labour as a form of pain relief. Friend was a perfectly healthy baby (and, indeed, inherited her mother's taste for bubbles, though thankfully not her smoking habit).
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