Areas › Low mood and hard feelings › When you use something to cope
There are medicines that make stopping smoking easier, and one of them can sometimes cover a mood or attention problem at the same time. That is a fair thing to ask a doctor about.
All of them carry side effects, so the conversation is a weighing up rather than a yes or no. Go in with what you already know about yourself: how many attempts, what happened when you stopped before, what else you are carrying. That gives the prescriber something to work with and keeps you inside the decision rather than outside it.
If you are using something to cope and it has become hard to stop, please speak to a doctor before changing anything.
Qur’an and Sunnah
do not forbid the good things God has made lawful to you (Quran 5:87). Taking help that is genuinely available to you is not a failure of trust.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ لَا تُحَرِّمُواْ طَيِّبَٰتِ مَآ أَحَلَّ ٱللَّهُ لَكُمۡ وَلَا تَعۡتَدُوٓاْۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يُحِبُّ ٱلۡمُعۡتَدِينَ
You who believe, do not forbid the good things God has made lawful to you- do not exceed the limits: God does not love those who exceed the limits
Qur’an 5:87read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A Cochrane review found that motivational interviewing produced a modest increase in quit rates compared with brief advice or usual care, and rated the evidence low quality. So the best studied talking approach helps somewhat, and not enormously. That is a reasonable argument for asking what else could sit alongside it rather than leaning on one thing.
Lindson-Hawley N, Thompson TP, Begh R. (2015). Motivational interviewing for smoking cessation.. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A hard thing gets easier when more than one kind of help is working on it at once.
When not to
Medication decisions belong with a prescriber who knows your history, and starting or stopping one alone can carry real risks.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
The fog after cannabis is not gone by morning. In younger users learning can stay dulled for several days, so Saturday night is still in the room on Wednesday.
Sometimes the drinking or the smoking is not the first problem at all. It is somebody's own treatment for an attention difficulty or an anxiety nobody has looked at yet.
What you tried at that age is a poor guide to what is in front of your child now. Cannabis today is far stronger than the same word used to mean.