6. How long does it realistically take to quit smoking? 

Once you’ve stopped smoking, it will take nicotine around 72 hours to leave your body- and the withdrawal symptoms you experience will take effect around 2-3 days after you quit. These symptoms usually last for around 1-3 months after you quit; although symptoms like low levels of energy and irritability can take longer to go away than the others.

Any effective smoking cessation program will have to consider this long adjustment period; the period of time it takes your nicotine receptors to go back to normal. For this reason, you’ll find that some doctors recommend weaning off nicotine slowly, with things like nicotine replacement therapy, rather than just going cold turkey.

So to summarise, most people seeking to quit smoking will start to feel better after around a week, and all of the symptoms will have gone within three months. And in terms of nicotine withdrawal symptoms, this average is true across all types of smokers; heavy and light, so you should never be caught in the trap of thinking that it's too late to think about quitting. The average timescale for people overcoming nicotine addiction is around 3 months.

Hopefully, this article helped you to answer the questions of what goes into, and how long it approximately takes to, quit smoking. For some other articles with advice and insight on stopping smoking