Quitting Smoking and the Endurance of Nicotine

This concluding chapter explores the persistence of addiction to nicotine at the turn of the twenty-first century, as well as the incentives for quitting smoking. Despite the development of behavioral and pharmaceutical assistance to help smokers give up their addictions to cigarettes, the transition from dependence to a smoke-free lifestyle can be, at least for some, “sheer hell.” Moreover, despite declining overall numbers of tobacco users since the mid-1960s, nicotine survived the “cigarette century” that was the twentieth century. While quitting smoking is the new normal among tobacco users, there are many “holdouts,” frequent relapses, aborted quit attempts, and harm-reducing electronic cigarettes that allow nicotine addiction to endure.