Quitting Smoking: Chantix Killed My Desire to Smoke — and Freed Me
Key takeaways:
Chantix completely eliminated the psychological addiction and the way I physically reacted to cigarettes.
The effects are permanent. Sixteen years later, I have no desire to smoke.
For me, this medication — available as generic varenicline — is worth the risk of side effects.
My Journey is a series of personal essays about what it’s like to cope with a medical condition.
I used to joke that quitting smoking was easy. After all, I’d done it about a dozen times.
The implied punchline — that quitting never lasted — is amusing. But the damage to my body from over 17 years of heavy smoking wasn’t funny, and I could no longer play the youth card and dismiss the consequences. After my latest bout of asthmatic bronchitis — something that happened at least twice a year for several years — my doctor said that each time I got sick, my lungs would get weaker, and I’d become a prime candidate for a severe disease like lung cancer or COPD.
“You really need to quit smoking,” my doctor warned me as he listened to my congested, wheezing lungs.
Enough was enough
I was only 34 years old when my body had had enough and was fighting back, harder and harder.
I also felt increasingly uncomfortable with the nasty smell that my nose could no longer detect, but that surely clung to me and overpowered the sweet body splashes, lotions, and perfumes I loved to buy. No matter how fresh and clean I would smell after a shower, once I smoked, Eau de Stale Tobacco spoiled whatever Bath and Body Works or Elizabeth Taylor scent I wore. My cigarettes also were becoming a huge expense draining my wallet and a major inconvenience as more and more places banned smoking.
I knew I needed to quit the toxic tobacco habit that I picked up in high school in a misguided adolescent effort to look cool and mature. But how?
I had tried and failed so many times since college when I attempted to confine my smoking to “only when I drink” — a slippery slope I slid right down. I think the longest I lasted was maybe 6 months at the most.
I never did the cold-turkey thing — that sounded too brutal. Instead, I took more of a warm-chicken approach, combining nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), cutting back, and sheer, white-knuckled willpower. The NRT products — patches and occasionally gum — did help with the physical withdrawals. Yet, I always relapsed because nothing could break my psychological dependence on the habit I used to call my “friend.” It soothed me, relaxed me, helped me relieve stress, and served as my constant companion for years.
Along came Chantix
But then, what I call a miracle came along in the form of Pfizer’s Chantix, now available as generic varenicline. My doctor mentioned it to me back in 2007 and explained that it did something to the part of your brain that reacts to the smoke and nicotine. Sure, I said. Why not?
Honestly, I wasn’t sure how much relief from cravings I would get from Chantix. But since it was a prescription medication, I figured it had to be stronger than NRT. So, I started taking the blue pills.
Wow.
I couldn’t believe it.
Within just a week or two of starting Chantix, the results were dramatic. A few days into taking it, I tried smoking, and it tasted so bad that I put out the cigarette. Not only did my cigarette cravings subside completely, but I even practically forgot that I was quitting smoking. I vividly remember one day, no more than a few weeks after starting the medication, I saw an opened pack of Marlboro Lights in my Nissan. For a moment, I actually felt confused about why I had them.
“Oh, that’s right,” I said to myself. “I am quitting smoking.”
In my previous quitting episodes, refraining from smoking consumed my thoughts, and it was a constant battle. Somehow, Chantix broke my physical and psychological dependence on this habit, and it’s like it erased my brain’s association with it.
My side effects: Occasional nausea and vivid dreams
I heard warnings about side effects from Chantix, namely the risk of psychiatric episodes.
As someone who has struggled with depression, I would be especially vulnerable to this kind of symptom. But I had no emotional side effects — except for the euphoria of being set free from my addiction.
I did have the occasional brief spell of nausea, but it lasted less than a minute. I also experienced the peculiar side effect of intensely vivid dreams while on Chantix, which I actually somewhat enjoyed, so long as it was a good dream. The occasional extra-intense nightmare was scary. But I will happily take a random upset stomach or nightmare over lung cancer, emphysema, or COPD.
Total transformation: I hate smoking now
Have you heard about the zeal of the convert? That describes me, and my friends who knew me during my smoking days find the transformation amusing. I used to be such a captive to nicotine, but now? I am not just a nonsmoker, but I loathe smoking. I hate being around it, and I cannot imagine how I endured it, let alone enjoyed smoking, for so many years.
I tell everyone about the medication formally known as Chantix. The brand name is no longer available, but the generic — varenicline — is. I’m like a walking commercial for it. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to quit. It can save your life, and that is well worth the side effects.
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