Abstract
Nicotine is an extremely addictive substance and although many smokers try to stop permanently, few succeed, even with support. Most stop smoking programmes for individuals or groups involve the use of nicotine replacement (gum or patches), but a time-limited group where members focus on the primary task can achieve high levels of smoking cessation without the use of nicotine replacement. This article follows the progress of ten heavily dependent smokers, most of whom had some form of smoking-related disease, over a five-week stop smoking programme at an NHS hospital. A year later five group members are not smoking.
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