How did most ex-smokers quit smoking?
Try Googling the most fundamental stop smoking question of all, "How did most ex-smokers quit smoking?"
While you'll see results claiming which "method" or "tip" is best, none of the top 50 returned titles or descriptions shout how most ex-smokers succeeded.
Claims
Drilling down, the 12th search result, the Australian government's "Quitting Methods" is the first to tell us how most smokers quit.
"While quitting cold turkey does not work for all smokers, most smokers quit smoking this way."
The very next search result (#13) is SmokeFree.gov, the United States' leading quitting site. It's entitled "Explore Quit Methods."
Does the U.S. agree with Australia? While SmokeFree.gov lists and reviews 13 quitting methods, cold turkey isn't among them. If Australia is correct and it's how most smokers quit, then why omit it?
The Truth Initiative site (#17) has long been hostile to cold turkey (example). While admitting that "most smokers" "attempt to quit ... cold turkey" it fails to tell smokers how most ex-smokers prevailed.
The Facts
Australia is correct, most successful ex-smokers quit smoking cold turkey. While the CDC's "Quitting without using a medicine" webpage fails to mention that cold turkey is the most productive method, it's true.
According to a 1992 CDC MMWR, in 1990 there were 44 million U.S. former smokers and "[a]pproximately 90% of successful quitters .. used a self-help quitting strategy, most by quitting abruptly." That was 30 years ago. What about now?
Studies analyzing the real-world big quitting picture are rare.
Usually, we only see slices such as a 2021 Urology study which found that 115 of 151 smokers with bladder cancer attempted quitting, with most attempting cold turkey (63 of 115 or 54%), and most succeeding cold turkey (42 of 64 or 66%).
A 2013 Gallup Poll asked successful ex-smokers the open-ended question, "What strategies or methods for quitting smoking were most effective for you?" Shockingly, only 13% credited cutting down first, nicotine gum, the nicotine patch, prescription medications or e-cigarettes. Most had quit cold turkey.
"Smoking Cessation: A Report of the Surgeon General" was released on January 23, 2020. Under the heading "Perspectives on Smoking Cessation," Page 15 of the Report states:
Proponents of encouraging smokers to quit without treatment, often called quitting "cold turkey," point to data indicating that most smokers who quit successfully do so without medications or any type of formal assistance, as well as to population surveys suggesting that cold-turkey quitters do as well or better than those who use over-the-counter NRTs. (Alpert et al. 2013; Polito 2013).
While honored that the Surgeon General cited my 2013 free quitting ebook, after 38 years of bombarding smokers with approved quitting product advertising, smokers have earned the truth about how most quitters succeed.
While cold turkey is clearly the world's productivity champion, what about quitting method effectiveness? It's complicated but the answer might surprise you!
