Stories & experiences

Why not give Champix another try. It worked well for you, but while it handles the need of nicotine so that you don't have to, you still need to addresss your overall thinking about cigarettes and your relationship with them. We all need time to make adjustments or to fill those gaps. We need to realize that there is life after smoking. Smoking did not define us. Nicotine was a drug that kept us smoking. We smoked and felt good because those dreaded craving would hit if we didn't light up.
Vaping may or may not be better than smoking. Other stuff is more harmful than the nicotine in cigarettes or juice. Nicotine will still rule your life, your time. If you really want to be free, read learn and keep trying.

Hi, and welcome :)
First, if you were on Champix, it was not cold turkey, and, although Champix, and others like it have helped many, a few do have serious adverse affects from it. I can't imagine quitting smoking, or nicotine, causing that lasting affect. I have seen reports of Champix doing that, though, in extremely rare cases.. Most likely, it is just your anxiety toward letting them go ? I have, and still do, recommend a simple, disposable E-cig, with nicotine, as a quick hit, NRT tool, to help with an otherwise cold turkey quit. Just keep it handy, for when you just think you HAVE to have something, to keep from lighting up. Take a puff, or two, and put it down.. I have seen it work, toward a full quit in just a few weeks.. I would never recommend switching to VAPING over smoking, mostly because there is not enough regulation over what is put into the juice..
You are addicted to SMOKING, not just nicotine. Open your mind to the reality of that addiction, and make a smoke something you do NOT WANT, and not something you can't have. This is a much more powerful mindset than you may think. Many, struggle, and may even stop for a while, but for a truly successful QUIT you need to let go of the want, and stop thinking like a smoker. :) Quitting really can be as easy as you make it :)

Welcome Aydenturner, Champix worked for me, even if only half a dose, as suggested you might consider this method again, over and above Vaping, which I believe has been researched but not sanctioned by health professionals in Australia. Anxiety is a condition which can be monitered by your Doctor, and since Champix is on a script, I cannot understand why this could not be done for you.

You are supposed to follow the information on the product, as close as possible, and eventually cease the product in a given time, which is also monitered by a GP. In your case your Doctor might have thought this was not right for you but I don't think you gave it a try (long enough). I personally would not try a product which had not thoroughly been researched and sanctioned by any health professionals, simply for the reasons above that you are not being checked by your GP during this process.

Get a GP that knows you and try to give them the opportunity to help you if you really want or desire to give up smoking long term. Get your mind into the process of thought suggestion such as NOPE (not one puff ever) this also works. Whatever you try you need to understand that your input is needed and a product will just cover up this input and eventually you will hit a brick wall, you need to work out your position in all aspects ..Post again with your decision intact, and with your strategies in place.