The Nicotine Habit:
Most of the programs advertised on the media are predicated on the assumption that the major reason you continue to smoke is that you are addicted to the nicotine in cigarettes. There seems to be little doubt that this kind of drug addiction does indeed play a part in your habit. But it is not the only part.
There have been several methods used to attempt to address this addiction. They range from outright quitting (Cold Turkey) to some sort of stepwise reduction (gradual weaning). All assume that if you break your addiction to nicotine, the entire habit and all its parts will automatically disapear.
Nicotine Gum, Nicotine Patches, Brand Switching are examples of nicotine weaning methods. Note that these procedures also have a recommendation that you seek and receive counseling for your "behavioral habit" as well, but do not stress the importance of this aspect of your habit.
Other methods are "Cold Turkey" procedures and require you to set a "Quit date, and on that date, you "Quit"-- i.e., simply stop smoking. Behavioral counseling programs and Hypnotisim are examples of the "Cold Turkey " procedures.
There have been many such procedures, but none have been particularly successful two years down the road. The last time I looked at the published research data, I found that two years after treatment, on average, 88% of those treated, regardless of the type of treatment, were again smoking. These findings are from the research literature, and not from tests of advertisers or manufacturers used to sell their product.
In sum then, it seems to me that any procedure that assumes that the reason you smoke is because of the addictive properties of nicotine is not going to be very successful in the long run in helping you gain control of your habit.
PBYS does attack your drug habit directly by weaning you from your drug addiction in very small steps (pokes). But of course, that is not all it does.
