And yet the numbers say that people who go through phased withdrawal using e-cigarettes are more likely to give up...

If I remember correctly, cold turkey has worse rates for initial quitting but the lowest rates of people returning to smoking for those who "made it"

IIRC it has to do with the anguish of quitting - if you went through the difficulty and pain of quitting cold turkey you probably don't want that to be for nothing

Sunk cost strikes again? This time for good.

I wouldn't say sunk cost so much as you now have a better understanding of what the price is now that you have paid it once.

Cold turkey is how my dad did it after 40 years of 2 packs a day, unfiltered. He went through a couple weeks of hell, but as far as I know he hasn't smoked in 21 years.

I have worked with quite a few elderly people, and I've heard many stories of people just quitting cold turkey after many years of smoking, as soon as the catastrophic health effects became common knowledge.

I think the older generation is just generally more accepting of discomfort than todays cream-puffs.

I remember reading a study done in the UK that said the exact opposite. 70% of people going cold-turkey were able to quit for good. They compared it to the number of people quitting using helping substitutes (like patches, ecigs and whatnot) where the success rate was way lower.

For a year or so I smoked casually when i was a teen in the 90s (to look cool) with intermittent bouts of heavy smoking over days at friends homes/etc. Probably average ~1-2 packs a week. One day i just got bored and stopped. Never felt any withdrawal signs.

I'm not countering your point of it being addictive. I was so, so so lucky not to have been hooked by that at all. I don't know if i just didn't smoke enough, or what... but it's one of the few points in my life i feel like i made the right choice. Weirder yet, it wasn't even a choice.. i just sort of stopped.

Some people have no problem quitting cigarettes

It's probably genetic

Also it seems to correlate with risk of Parkinson's http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/832391

( huh that seems to be paywalled? Google "Ease of Quitting Smoking May Be Early Sign of Parkinson's")

I've read you need to smoke 5 a day to form and maintain a physical addiction which is why it might have been so easy.

https://www.hri.global/files/2011/07/13/Benowitz_-_Nicotine_...

I tried a number of cessation methods, including vapes, and was only eventually successful going cold turkey. But I think there's a pretty complex nexus of factors that determine what works best for an individual - your behavioral tendencies towards addictions in general, your neurochemical susceptibility to nicotine dependency in particular, your overall health and ability to weather more severe physical withdrawal, your use of other recreational drugs or medicines, and the presence of other smokers in your everyday life all come to mind. So, while I felt similarly about my own experience quitting, I disagree with the statement that it's the normative "best way", or that there is any single best way to quit.

I'm with you for that reason. It can be a real wakeup call. I thought I had just grown more irritable and less social -- turns out I was just seriously addicted to nicotine.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work for many people.

As a fellow former smoker, I don't agree that you have the standing to decide the best way for anyone but you.