Addicted to Nicotine Lozenges

[Bellsandbows]

I gave up smoking two years ago. I used 1mg Nicotine lozenges but ended up chaging to 2mg and now I am having at least 15 a day. I am ashamed to admit I eat them all day long like sweets. Whenever I feel tense or anxious I reach for another lozenge. I terrified of giving them up because I know my anxiety might flare up and I will have a bad temper... but I also want to be free on the addiction. I hate being dependent and the panic I feel if I am running low on lozenges. I ingest way more nicotine than I ever would have as a smoker and I'm worried about the long term affect on my body. Has anyone managed to quit Nicotine? Or know where I can get some help?

Hi! Well done for quitting smoking!!! You’ve done an amazing thing for your help. I chew nicotine gum too, quite a bit, probably almost as much as you. I wouldn’t be overly worried about it, I don’t think it’s bad for your health and certainly it’s better than smoking, though I understand the feeling of addiction is not nice. Can you try very gradually decreasing? Having perhaps 1.5 pieces of the 1mg instead of 1 piece of 2mg? Or even one piece of 1mg mixed with a piece of regular gum?

I’m similar, but only a month into quitting vaping and I’ve managed to get from 4mg to 1mg lozenges, but there’s usually one in my mouth. I’m going to keep going like this for a while but then my plan is to try the lowest strength nicotine patch and just suck sweets at first to wean myself off the needing something in my mouth feeling. I feel like a patch might be psychologically a bit easier to give up. Maybe this is something you could try?

Thanks very much. It is much better than smoking, its true. I would say be careful with the lozenges. I think they are really addictive. The patch idea is a good plan. Thanks so much for responding. I've felt too ashamed to talk to anyone in real life about this because I hid my smoking before.

I think my real problem is I am using Nicotine, like I used smoking before, to self-medicate to deal with emotional reactions to stress. I am scared of the person I might be without the calming influence of nicotine.
Well done to you Sunshine. You sound like you have a plan.

I know what you mean about nicotine. Vaping was ridiculous I was doing it constantly. I might sound like I’ve got a plan but at the moment I’m just sucking lozenges! I’ll let you know how the patches go if I try them.

How long were you valine for @SunshineOutdoorsunshine?

About 3 years I think

It is great you have gotten yourself off the vaping. Good luck with reducing the lozenges.

Can you get another sweet to suck on? There are calming sweets like rescue remedy that have herbs in them. Try reducing them by swapping out, say every other sweet. Something like this will be fine.

Thanks rescue remedy sweets is a really good idea!

It sounds like an excuse but home schooling a 6 and 9 year old, has been so stressful, I have been turning to Nicotine to extend my patience with my girls.

I’d give yourself a break at the moment, homeschooling is stressful and nicotine withdrawal, whilst not the worst thing ever, does put you (me) on edge and reduces patience

I quit using patches and lozenges. After the 12-week course finished with the patches I was still using the lozenges. I had them in every handbag. I found they were making me crave a fag more. I started swapping them for strong mints and eventually managed to stop taking them completely.

Nicotine lozenges were an incredibly difficult thing for me to quit. It sated the need to do something with my mouth (replacing the smoking activity), it gave me an awesome nicotine high all day long and best of all I could experience this in the office, in cinemas, in people's houses without being antisocial.

Now the downsides. They destroy your teeth - like clockwork I would go for my checkup and I'd need 2-3 fillings. You end up popping one after the other and then you wake up in the morning feeling drained. They impact the body's natural digestive functions.

I was only ever able to quit them on holiday. They aren't common abroad so I'd go away for a week and run down my supply beforehand. Then I'd use nicotine patches to manage my nicotine requirement. In that week, I'd overcome my need for the dreaded lozenge.

Every single time I took up smoking again I'd end up back where I started. Lozenges to deal with the smoking, teeth problems and finally a trip overseas and back to the patches.

Years later I have dealt with my lozenge problem but I'm still a nicotine addict. I love the feeling when I put on the patch in the morning. I love the feeling when I stick yesterday's patch on the other arm.

If you can manage the switch from lozenge to patch, you can continue that flow of nicotine with fewer side effects - as I understand it, medicinal nicotine isn't unsafe in normal quantities. Once you master that, figure out if and how you'll stop using the patch.

Thanks for the replies and suggestions. I am definitely going to try some alternatives like the patch and other sweets.

@scottish83 You are completely right about it being so easy to keep taking the lozenges in public. I didn't know about the digestive system effects and I guess I was hoping that because they are sugar free that they wouldn't contribute to cavities. This amount of artificial sweetners ever day cannot be good though. I also worry about the amount of Nicotine I am ingesting - I can almost feel a bit high sometimes. I don't want my kids to grow up seeing their mum popping Nicotine day in and day out. And I don't want to risk longterm effects from these non stop chemicals in my body. I know compared to other addictions this is minor but the decency is the same.
Thanks @SunshineOutdoors. I am the same as you when I am withdrawing from Nicotine. Maybe the patch will be a stepping stone and save me getting too ratty.

@Bellsandbows
How are you getting on now?
I have joined this discussion as I was searching the net for lozenge addiction.
I'm in the same position.
I didn't know about the affect on teeth, it makes sense now, as my veneers keep falling off and I didn't understand why.
If you managed to find an alternative, please let me know.
The first time I quit smoking I went cold turkey as I had just discovered I was pregnant.
I stopped for ten years and foolishly went back to it for five years only managing to stop due to covid. 6 months on I'm popping lozenges every half hour. I'm on 1mg.
Desperate to get off them.
Any advice would be so appreciated.

@Bobski2 How you getting along? , I came across this thread just now- I've been chomping on the wretched things for 5 years now and since working from home eat them one after the other like sweeties. The absurdity of it all hit me after I realised I'd run out on Saturday and dragged my poor kids out in the rain to go to the supermarket to get more. I've bought some stage 3 patches and sugar free mints and am on day 3 now, just wearing the patches during the day as had nasty nightmares the past 2 nights. It's not easy at all but hoping to be over the worst in a couple of days

I was addicted to nicotine lozenges (and a very heavy user of them) for 14 years.

i hope all the contributors to this thread found it easier to quit than I did.

How are you @Bellsandbows? I actually managed to quit some weeks ago! To whoever said they quit on holiday - this is what I did and it was so much easier than I thought. I didn’t use patches as I just wanted to be free of the damn addiction. I now chew a lot of regular gum which helps. Unfortunately I do now crave cigarettes when im anxious (which I never did on the gum) so im nervous about starting smoking again but so far so good.

@Norwegianleatherindustry i sympathise and I hope you managed to quit too

I'm still heavily addicted and it's getting worse, currently on 12 a day of 1mg but sometimes I need more, this week is particularly terrible, ran out yesterday afternoon and when finally bought some at tea time, I needed one after another.
I keep getting mouth ulcers.
Sweets don't work as an alternative😞

@Bobski2 i wouldn’t worry excessively about 12mg a day. I reckon I was using three times that much… for more than a decade. I cringe and despair at the damage I have probably done.

How did you manage to quit them?

12mg is nothing, I could knock that back within an hour😂 It’s a horrible feeling though, I don’t mean to make light of your situation.

I must say that “normal” levels of nicotine are not necessarily harmful so I doubt either of you have done yourself any real damage, and in any case it’s healthier than smoking.

I quit several times for periods of between a couple of weeks to a couple of months but always lapsed.

it took a real health scare (degenerative disc disease in my neck, which I believe was either caused directly or exacerbated by high daily nicotine intake) to finally stop. My thyroid is also destroyed and I’m on daily medication for that.

I don’t know how the discs are in other parts of my spine - I suspect not great.

Smint mints (the blue ones) were a really useful substitute to turn over in my mouth, but I still love and miss the delicious burst of aspartame-sweetened nicotine. Those lozenges were delicious.

Glad it’s not just me who is struggling! I have used lozenges for 9 years on and off. I actually quit when I had surgery for two years and then started again 😔 I came across this as 2024 is the year to quit for me. I hate it when I’m running low and seem to have to plan my life around trips to the shops to buy more! Also the cost of them has increased in the past 6 months. Fingers crossed I can quit the 2mg.