If you are not a smoker please just skip now.   At 51 I have smoked cigs for way more years than I care to admit, like 35.   Like most I have tried to quit many times.   The wife and I decided it was time for both of us.  Went to doc and got _script_ for Chantix. Insurance doesn't cover and it is around 140.00 for a month here in Texas, YMMV.  The package the doc gives you has a 30 dollar coupon for first month.  The first 3 days it's one pill and then 2 a day.  One in AM and one in PM.  The stuff kicks in really fast, you feel a very slight buzz similar to the one you get after a 5 hour flight and smoke a cig after running to the exit.   The really cool thing about the plan is that there's no pressure to quit.  Take the pill and keep smoking.  After you get to the 2 pills a day stage something odd starts happening.   When you do smoke you don't get any satisfaction.  I think this is due to the drug filling your nicotine receptors.  So you think you want one, light it up and nothing happens.  So over time you start putting them out faster.  At this point you are fighting the mental habit.  All the things associated with smoking, after eating, talking on phone, driving etc.  You still fire one up, it just does nothing for you.  What little positive you get from them is taken away and the negatives become clearer.  After a week or so something really odd happened to me.  The times I would think are hardest to not smoke became the easiest.  Like Friday night poker.   Have a regular game, low buy in freeze out we have been playing for years.   Maybe 25% of regulars in that game smoke.  Very common when UTG to  head for porch after hand to take a few puffs and be back in seat before action came around.  Of course there are many beers and booze, a regular paradise for the smoking habit right?   This was the first place I went smoke free, 4 to 6 hours of drinking and no smoking.  That is a minor miracle to me. The bad thing is work made me want to smoke.  I would have not had one from 5 PM all the way to 8:30 AM, sit down, open email and bam, go out and light up.  Maybe 5  to 8 times a day.  I would re-light the same one so the numbers went down. This all takes time, but again there's no pressure to quit. No stress about it.   Around week 5 for me something new kicked in.  Since I was smoking a lot less, down from 1 to 1.5 packs a day to 5 or 10 cigs my sense of taste started coming back.  (Seems I read your taste buds renew every 14 days). This did 2 things, made cigs taste really bad and food taste really really good.  So now that they taste really bad I would light one up and take 2 puffs and put it out and feel stupid for lighting it in the first place.     I didn't plan this but my last smoke was Friday around 5 PM.  Didn't not smoke all weekend and Monday morning it seemed like a real shame to break a streak so I toughed it out and now I am in day 5 of no smoking at all.   I still want one bad at times but I have a new mental game and that is breaking the streak.  I do not want to start over on smoke free days. Side Effects:  They list a crap load of potentials.  Insomnia,  nausea, vivid dreams, suicidal thoughts to name a few.  The only one I have had is vivid dreams but that is pretty cool.  The wife has had some nausea but nothing major.  The other side effects are from not smoking and are positive for  the most part.  Sense of smell and taste are back in full force.  Funny how bad smokers smell.  And food, holy crap food tastes so good, I plan on at least 20 lbs to lose after this is done. I almost did not mention this one.  Sadness.  It is the damndest thing, there is a sadness about not smoking, it is like an old friend died.   My wife and I both felt it and thought it was too weird to mention.  Like the back deck where we smoked for years now seems empty. I told her that if I had known the one on friday was my last smoke I would have been nicer to it.  You had to be there. Bottom line,  do it.  The payback is instant, smoking less pays the 140 a month. _______________________________________________________________________  * kill-files, watch-lists, favorites, and more.. www.recgroups.com