I stopped smoking after I was bribed. Someone who loves me offered me cash if I could stop - enough for it to be a real incentive, and a real pain if I regressed and had to pay it back. I'd tried nicotine replacement therapies and Zyban (bupropion) tablets before, and they had worked, for a while, but eventually I would "just have one" and a week later I'd be back to a pack-a-day. Wanting first to get the cash and then later to not pay it back (in combination with a second course of Zyban) was enough to stop me taking that single cigarette that would have led inevitably back to addiction.
Maybe I'm just a moneygrubbing whore, but I'm pretty convinced that this strategy, or a variation, could work for alot of people. Perhaps bet someone $1000 that they can't stop & stay off for a year, & accept the same bet for yourself. Choose a pharmaceutical crutch & follow the instructions. After you've finished the quit course, hopefully you both will owe the other $1000, so noone loses any money, & for the next year, there is a painful disincentive against lighting up... After a year, you're much less likely to regress.
Anyway, that worked for me... hope it helps someone else.
