Hi chime,
Welcome to QuitTrain. The quitting process takes time regargless of whether or not you use NRT's. Here is my experience:
I quit smoking three times. The first was cold turkey. The second was with the patch used for the full 8 weeks with 4 weeks of step 1 (21 mg of nicotine). The third was with the patch for less than 8 weeks (maybe 5 weeks...I don't remember exactly how long) and I only used the step 1 patches for the first few days but used the step 2 patches for at least a couple of weeks. I went through terrible physical withdrawal with the cold turkey quit. I felt bad for a month and then slowly started to feel better. I had virtually no physical withdrawal symptoms with the second quit. With the 21 mg patches, I hardly even craved a cigarette which I found quite unbelievable. I did experience some withdrawal symptoms with the third quit but not too bad. With NRT, I found it much easier to focus on the mental aspects of quitting when I wasn't simultaneously suffering physical withdrawal.
When I was done with the patches, I did not have any withdrawal symptoms that I was aware of. With quit #2, I went from Step 3 patches (7 mg) to nothing. With quit #3, I cut some of the Step 3 patches in half, so went from 3.5 mg of nicotine to nothing. I didn't want to take any chances because I used the patches for a shorter period of time and was afraid that I might suffer some withdrawal which I did not want to do.
Good luck and best wishes for a successful quit!
