Quitting smoking: Champix?

reading this free book as well as allen carr's easyway (have to say i prefer the free one, there is also this) but the first book (freedom from nicotine) has this to say about champix/chantix (p118-120)

                             **Varenicline - Chantix & Champix **- A few words of caution about varenicline (Chantix  and Champix). Never in the history of cessation products have we seen such a wide array  of serious side effects, including death. We cannot accurately predict who will and will  not sustain harm. What can be asserted with confidence is that varenicline is not the  magic cure or nearly as effective in real-world use as marketing suggests. 

A 2008 study was the first to pit the nicotine patch against varenicline. Participants were asked at both six months and one year whether or not they had smoked any cigarettes in the past seven days. The authors report that there "were no significant differences" between Chantix and nicotine patch users at either 6 months (varenicline 38.6% vs. patch 34.1%) or one year (varenicline 34.8% vs. patch 31.4%).207

The study notes that** two varenicline users experienced severe depression, with suicidal ideation causing one to be hospitalized **11 days after ending Chantix use. It found that among 376 Chantix users and 370 patch users that **the likelihood of a Chantix users experiencing vomiting was 5.5 times greater than among nicotine patch users, that decreased sense of taste was 5.3 times greater, abdominal pain was x5, disturbances in attention x4.5, nausea x4, flatulence x4, constipation x3, headaches x2, dizziness x2, diarrhea x2, with 2.3 times as many Chantix users complaining of fatigue. **

Does it make any sense to assume significantly increased risks, including risk of death, without significantly offsetting benefits?

England’s Stop Smoking Services may offer the highest caliber government sponsored cessation services of any nation. Services include free individual or group counseling and support.** A 2008 study analyzing program performance found that at four weeks after starting varenicline treatment that 63% of varenicline users were still not smoking as compared to 48% using nicotine replacement products (NRT) such as the nicotine patch, gum or lozenge, and 51% who stopped smoking without use of any quitting product.208

While at first blush it might appear that varenicline has the lead, keep in mind that these are four-week results and that both varenicline and NRT users still face another 4-8 weeks of treatment before trying to adjust to living and functioning with natural brain dopamine stimulation.
**

The only long-term English evidence is from an April 2005 study that examined one-year success rates. 209 The study did not include varenicline as it wasn’t yet on the market. It found that while 25.5% of those who attempted recovery without using any pharmacology product at all were still smoke-free at one year, that only 15.2% of NRT users and 14.4% of bupropion (Zyban) users were still not smoking.

Bringing together all we so far know suggests that after one year varenicline will most likely finish slightly ahead of NRT but behind cold turkey.

Don’t expect any researcher to ever provide a copy of this book or Joel’s as part of any fair, open-label study pitting varenicline against those wanting to quit cold turkey. Doing so would produce a cold turkey victory that would seriously damage a massive golden goose. The researcher bold enough to conduct the study would never receive pharmaceutical industry funding of any study ever again.

the main points of easyway are:

1. make the decision that you are never going to smoke again.

2. don’t mope about it. rejoice!
   the main point of freedom from nicotine is understanding and then avoiding this:

Administration of a drug to an addict will cause re-establishment of chemical dependence upon the addictive substance.
FFN stresses that just one dose of nicotine is enough to cause total relapse, and focusses on taking it one day at a time...no nicotine today. considering that most smokers would probably say they could do an hour without smoking, then extrapolate that to a day...a week etc. but still taking it one day at a time.