The Unkindest Puff

CHICAGO: As anyone wrestling with nicotine addiction knows, that first day can seem an eternity. Now, researchers studying the effectiveness of the nicotine patch are placing odds on whether your first tobacco-free 24 hours will really last forever. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center and the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center studied 200 smokers who buttressed their "quit day" by starting on a nicotine patch program. Those who broke down and cheated that first day were "10 times more likely to be smoking" in the long run, said one of the researchers, Dr. Eric Westman of Durham, N.C. "This finding contradicts the common idea that people can cheat, even just a little, and still quit smoking." So where was the supposed satisfaction of the patch that first day? Westman doesn't know. But he found a bright side. Failure in that first 24 hours, he said, can be an early signal that the nicotine patch alone will not be enough. Patches can run $4 a day or $224 for an eight-week treatment, he said, and he advises first-day backsliders not to throw good money after bad. But aspiring quitters of all stripes are a notoriously quixotic bunch, whose "quit days" can quickly pile up seven to a week. Hope springs eternal, and Mark Twain did it lots of times.