Champix Chantix Success Report No.1

so I had to wonder why – four years after Champix was made available in the UK – a “wonder drug with a 50% success rate”, we were told – this was the first smoker I had ever met, professionally or socially, that reckoned they had quit successfully with Champix and without side effects.

I’ve met loads that haven’t succeeded with Champix, and about half of them said they had to stop taking it because it made them ill.

by hypnotherapist Chris Holmes

*Update: If you or a loved one has suffered a bad reaction to Champix and you are based in the U.K., you can report it to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) here. The more people do that the clearer the true picture will become. Protect others! Report it.*

Today I met someone who was successful with Champix.  This person had come to me for weight loss, and some of that weight gain had been as a result of stopping smoking.  The young woman – let’s call her Lucy – reported that although she had taken a course of Champix in 2010, and it “did nothing at all”, this year she was really determined and had told herself that: “This time the tablets WILL work… this time I’m definitely going to stop smoking!”  And indeed she did.

So – presumably – the first time around she did NOT tell herself that.  Maybe that’s why the tablets “did nothing at all”.  And – presumably – the tablets were made to the exact same specifications as the 2010 batch… dosage was the same, length of course the same… indeed the only factor that was different was her mental attitude and the positive suggestions she was giving herself.

Positive suggestions and mental attitude are what hypnotherapy are all about.  Essentially we do the same sort of thing but without the tablets, AND we include therapy to prevent the weight gain, which is easily avoided if your hypnotherapist knows what they’re doing.  I’ll soon reverse Lucy’s weight gain anyway, but we could have done the lot in one go if she’d come here in the first place.

But that’s not what prompted me to write this post.  What prompted me to write it was the realisation that Lucy was the first of my clients ever to report lasting success with Champix.  True, it had only been four months so far, but she was pretty confident she had it licked and I had no reason to doubt this.  Now, I meet a lot of smokers and ex-smokers in the course of my work, and of course we talk about these things all the time, regardless of what the session today is actually about, so I had to wonder why – four years after Champix was made available in the UK – a “wonder drug with a 50% success rate”, we were told – this was the first smoker I had ever met, professionally or socially, that reckoned they had quit successfully with Champix and without side effects.

I’ve met loads that haven’t succeeded with Champix, and about half of them said they had to stop taking it because it made them ill.

So when people contact the Truth Will Out site (occasionally) to report that they and their partner and their neighbour and all their 27 friends have successfully quit with Chantix or Champix… (and that all of them had previously tried hypnotherapy and failed! despite the fact that less than 1% of the population have ever consulted a hypnotherapist about ANYTHING)… I might be forgiven for doubting this tale, and wondering if this message really comes from some liar who sells Champix over the internet and is a bit worried about sales being not what they were now that smokers are beginning to twig that this “wonder drug” isn’t any better than the last one (Zyban), but it does seem to be WAY more harmful and unpredictable.

safer alternative

27 thoughts on “Champix Chantix Success Report No.1”

  1. Hello, my names Martin. (not a champix salesman) and have to honestly admit champix has worked for me… It’s been 6 months and I feel great !! Barely any side affects (nothing but vivid dreams whilst on the pill and some of those were quite interesting if I’m honest) I can honestly say I will never smoke or be a slave to that horrible weed again… I smoked about 20 a day for 15 years and was reduced to tears by trying to quit in different ways. I feel I went into using champix with the same attitude as with all the other forms of NRT that I tried…

    Viva la champix !!! Sorry but it worked and continues to work for me !!

    Regards

    Martin Palmer

  2. “Viva la champix”?

    Slightly inappropriate to cheer “long live Champix” when it has KILLED PEOPLE. It doesn’t kill everyone and it does work for something like 17% of people, so your personal tale of good fortune is perfectly believable. Well done you.

    I’m not praising Champix.

  3. I am fairly confident that Chamix has helped me quit but I do concur with Chris Holmes in that a part of me really WANTED to quit and I may have had similar success without any 3rd party aid.

    The biggest problem however is after the treatment has been completed with NHS the ex smoker is on his/her own. No more encouragement from friends and family or the NHS stop smoking practice.

    I have managed to quit smoking a number of times (hopefully this will be my last) but started again. This has inevitably been due to a stress situation which could occur at any time.

    Champix has helped me to stop without any major side effects so I can say that (so far) it has been successful. It will not stop me from starting again though which is why I think on-going smoking cessation is needed.

  4. I am currently taking Champix, I am on my 2 week. I have smoked since I was 12 and am nearly 40.
    I have never been able to go longer than 3 hours without a cigarette despite being very active day and night. Since being on Champix I gradually reduced and am now cold turkey for the last 5 days. To me this is a miracle. Yes Champix has given me bad dreams, yes I do feel stressed, sad, peed off and a bit rough but hey no cigarettes. It is saving me a fortune and am glad I have started taking it.

  5. Oh, god – what do I do? Direct you to the rest of the Champix section on the site, or just say nothing? If I say nothing, I’m no different from the doctors who don’t warn anybody. If I warn everyone I get abuse from all the new users who think it’s great because they’ve actually stopped smoking for a few days and they haven’t killed their loved ones or thrown themselves from a bridge yet.

    Unfortunately, by the time Champix users find out that most smokers only stop smoking temporarily (which Pfizer have known all along, from the drug trials) and that most of the horrific side effects only kick in after a few weeks on the drug, they’ve already told everyone how wonderful it is and encouraged a lot of other people to try it.

    Having said that, some people don’t suffer bad side effects anyway and about 18% actually stop smoking for a year or more.

    You see, I don’t mind them hyping the success rate, because that actually raises the real success rate a little due to higher expectations, excitement and increased positivity. But not warning people of horrific side effects? That’s not on. And when smokers say: “It’s worth the risk because of the success rate”, that is largely because they’ve been told the success rate is 44%, which it isn’t. And what they really mean is, it’s worth the risk providing it doesn’t happen to me. Not one of the people reporting horrible side effects has said it was worth it, they are saying the very opposite.

    So what a smoker is really saying, if they suggest that taking Champix is “worth the risk”, is that the chance of stopping smoking, even though it isn’t a very big chance of permanently stopping, is worth the risk of other people being hospitalised or committing suicide, violent assault on their wife and kids and subsequent arrest and imprisonment – whatever – the list of horrors is very long – but if it actually happens to ME then I’ll be straight back on here warning everyone: DON’T TAKE CHAMPIX!! It’s not worth the risk.

  6. Hi Chris. Been one of the original users of Champix 2008. I cannot believe this shit is still being dished out like sweets in a candy shop. Most people start off with positive feelings when they take this ‘miracle’ pill but the success rate is pretty low. It is the horrendous side effects that come with this drug that people are not aware of – it can turn a normal person into a suicide or a violent nutter. I have been on lots of medication in the past and most side effects are long forgotton. This stuff though I can still remember the side effects including the dreams I had! If you want to stop smoking you can do it without this drug. I am still smoke free but will admit to ocassional recreational drugs. I am no longer using an e-cig and feel my life is balanced and happy now. Keep up the good work!

  7. I started Champix today, 29th March 2012 – my goal is to stop smoking on 11th April 2012. I’ve been smoking for about 17 years & just came out of hospital on the 27th March 2012. Had bronchitis, then went to broncal pneumia – being so sick, not able to breath, right lung full of phlem… It scared me and I have made up my mind I have to stop smoking. It’s not cool, you stink, you burn so much money etc. With the help of God I hope that I will now quit smoking forever.

  8. Making up your mind to quit smoking is one thing. Taking Champix is another matter altogether. As long as a person has been fully informed about everything that has resulted so far from this totally unpredictable drug – the seizures, the suicides, the attempted suicides, the murders, the violent attacks, the crimes committed that are totally out of character, the arrests, the prosecutions, the lost lives in terms of jobs lost, homes lost, marriages and children – and the sad fact that it doesn’t work in the long run for about 85% of users anyway – and they STILL decide to risk it – I say that’s up to them.

    So: were YOU warned about all that, Veronica?

  9. I tried many times and many ways to stop smoking over the last 15 years and Champix was the solution for me. I stoped smoking within 7 days and have not smoked since. Been over two years now. I have recommended Champix to many friends and most of them has also been successful. The only side effect that that I had was slight nausea after taking the medication which only lasted about 10-15 minutes. The same was reported by my friends. I know at least twenty people who have used champix none of which report the kind of side effects listed here.

  10. Matthew, what you are suggesting there is that in your experience, Champix has a 100% success rate in a group of at least 20 different people. You really should be working for Pfizer, because even with all their resources for running drug trials – and experience of fixing them so that the results look far better than the drugs will perform in the real world – they never managed to get the “success rate” higher than 44%. Since we now know from various independent sources that the real outcomes are more like 15% success at the 12 month stage, I can say with absolute confidence that you are either exaggerating or just lying.

    Now read this.

  11. Hey Chris,
    Ever think that people that visit a hypnotherapist might be biased towards those who failed quitting another way? Seems like your experience might not be representative either.

  12. Perfectly fair point Jake, I am aware of that. Also that many people who have already successfully quit – by whatever method – are less likely to join the debate on blogs like this because they aren’t searching the subject, they’re just getting on with their lives. It is possible that we get a skewed vision of the real picture, just like the police officers that end up cynical about the human race because they are constantly confronted with the worst of human behaviour. But check this out.

  13. I also found champix to increase rage and heighten emotions. My ex-wife and I tryed champix the 1st time.
    I quit. She got rage extreme. We separated during this quit attempt. Sad.

    2nd attempt. I quit 95% with the assistance of champix a 2nd time. Still a few slip ups. 3 smokes on night this week. This time I didn’t get to the point cigarettes smell bad and still crave them. Hope that changes soon!!!!

    The decided not to try it again.

    Champix helped the cravings. The price of this powerful drug with side effects during use and during withdrawal.

    How bad do you want to quit? If its bad enough to take champix your likely on the quitting track.

  14. Hi Chris, Thank you for your site, I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to click .

    I am taking champix for the 3rd time. 1st. time I had vivid dreams that were actually enjoyable, nausia which I soon realised was preventable by having the pill partway through my meal.

    That was it – all was great & I easily stopped smoking.

    Unfortunately a few months later I started smoking again, for the reason I think being in the company of smokers & being subject to passive smoking – The passive smoking got me hooked on cigarettes again.

    I had champix again – quit again – all good as before I thought.

    I felt aware & thought I was prepared, but started smoking again a few months on.

    So here I am again 10 weeks in on champix, stopped smoking 9 weeks ago & I feel at deaths door.

    I am breathless. Totally exhausted. My body aches all over. I cannot concentrate. I forget just about everything just about all of the time. I have wicked thoughts. I feel life is pointless. I forget where i’m going & had to park up to think & remember where to go. I feel jittery. My vision suddenly goes blurred &/or I struggle to focus. I forget the names of objects & get my words muddled up. I am disinterested in everything & don’t even enjoy the things in life I enjoy. I feel lonely but prefer to be on my own. I have chronic pain in my hips & legs – especially in bed. I literally feel like i’ve had a labotomy, my mind goes to a fog.

    I am usually a focused, determined positive person. Yet today I have done nothing, just sat on the settee in a pathetic heap – it’s been an effort to get some fresh fruit from the bowl & nuts to eat & water to drink. I had to walk my dog(havn’t done for 5 days – large garden though) & had a friend come with me in case I collapsed. I did visit my doctor this Monday 25th June, had blood tests on Tuesday – Taking in a urine sample tomorrow with a completed HADS form (Hospital Anxiety & Depression Scale) – seeing my doctor again on 4th.July…..

    I have always had superb eyesight, my optician had said he’d be out of a job if everyone had my eyesight. However last year I started with problems with my eyes which I just thought age was catching up with me a bit at 47. At the time I didn’t make any connection of their deterriation with champix. My eyesight gradually improved over time. Now back on champix & it’s worse than ever

    Also last year i’d experienced such chronic pain in my legs & hips & had several months visiting the physio dept., doing the exercises at home, but with no improvement. The nurse reccommended that I attend a Pain Management Clinic. Again I made no association with this condition to be connected to champix. The pains gradually subsided over time but never went completely – I just learned to live with it. Now the pains are back in full force.

    Also last year I mentioned to my dentist some swelling on one side of my mouth towards the back by my jaw, though it wasn’t swollen on that day. I described it as uncomfortable & the swelling had white lumps on it.

    I’ll be honest I was concerned it was mouth cancer. She said not to worry it is proberly blocked saliva glands. It appeared when I ate & I thought it was a bit allergic to something, which I thought was honey. Then it seemed to stop being a problem, I had no honey & over time & I forgot about it. A time later I had honey without a problem. Yes it’s flared up again & i’m taking champix.

    It has only been today, sat in my delerious state that I have realised these connections & thus explored the internet for the dark side of champix – Literally up to today I have sung champix praises.

    I am also cold & shaky, & feel almost a bit drunk with very slow processing, having to rewind the T.V. to understand the progamme.
    P.S. – I have not had any alcohol whatsoever for over 3 months.

    CHAMPIX NEEDS TO BE BANNED – FOREVER

  15. The need to plug hypnopherapy says it all.
    If people believe that jumbo_jumbo then good luck?.
    I quit on champix 2 years ago after 3 failed hypnotherapy sessions with 3 (ahem!.) specialists, they were useless to me and its about time the. “proffession” was more regulated.

  16. Daz washes whiter – and this is a Champix whitewash. 3 hypnotherapy sessions with 3 different specialists, eh? Very unlikely! Who on earth, if they had tried one hypnotherapy session and failed, then tried another hypnotherapist and failed, would go to another hypnotherapist?

    I’m plugging the methods that work without hospitalising or killing people like Champix unfortunately does, all too often. Hypnotherapy, acupuncture and the Allen Carr method. Are you going to tell us you tried 3 acupuncturists now too, and went to three different Allen Carr clinics?

    By the way: jumbo_jumbo should be mumbo-jumbo, hypnopherapy should be hypnotherapy and proffession should be profession. Never mind us being regulated, it’s about time you were educated!

  17. Hi there,

    I came across this website randomly while searching for champix side effects, no real reason, just nosiness and interest. I’m not going to ridicule anyone who has quit smoking by any method and I think it is small minded to do so. This is not an argument which is worth having, for the simple reason that everyone is different. I have been a month smoke-free now, purely from using Champix. Be it psychological or not, the simple fact is, it has worked. I have tried, on many occasions, to quit through a variety of different methods, and failed. Champix has changed the way I think. I started taking it 5 weeks ago and now take one rarely, really when I think about it. Having never tried hypnotherapy I cannot comment on how successful it would have been for me. My Dad tried it once and it didn’t work. But I can tell you this: that I don’t think hypnotherapy would have worked, nor the Alan Carr method, and it is that simple reason alone which would probably have made this a self-fulfilling prophecy. Half of the side effects from Champix that people detail could also be linked to nicotine withdrawal. I know I have had no severe side effects. But you are not me. However we manage quitting smoking should be celebrated, if you feel dreadful side effects from a chemical drug, STOP TAKING IT! You cannot blame science for human stupidity. That is all.

  18. Aww, no – not that old “nicotine withdrawal” bullshit! Look, you’ve quit, you got no side effects. Good for you. Is that all that matters to you? Don’t you CARE that so many other people have had their lives devastated, so long as you’re alright? Or more likely, you know sod all about it.

    So read this. It has nothing to do with hypnotherapy, my book, or any other methods of quitting. It is about the suicides, attempted suicides and other catastrophic reactions that YOU are dismissing in an off-hand way, just because they didn’t happen to you personally.

    “Just stop taking it”? We’ve had reports of people waking up in police custody to be told of having committed some awful crime that they don’t remember at all! How the hell are you supposed to protect yourself against that? People suddenly realising that hours have gone by they cannot account for. People finding a loved one hanging in the shed whan they seemed perfectly alright half an hour before. “Nicotine withdrawal”?

    “You cannot blame science for human stupidity”? Oh, I’m not blaming science, girl. I’m blaming Pfizer, for lying about hundreds of suicides in the early years, covering up the evidence continuing to sell what they know perfectly well is a largely useless and potentially deadly medication.

    For your information Pfizer have just settled the first compensation case for suicide out of court for an undisclosed sum, and there are hundreds more in the pipeline. Tell me, Claire – if you had committed suicide on this evil drug, how much compensation do you think your family should “settle for” in compensation for losing you?

    If you think this has anything to do with true science, my god you’re an innocent. Just thank Christ you weren’t one of the many innocent VICTIMS – as luck would have it. Whether you stay off the cigs in the long term, well – you have about a 13% chance. What a lousy long-term success rate THAT is. As the Professor of Public Health Sciences Curt Furberg says, in the report above: “The risks simply outweigh the benefits.”

  19. This one came in by email today:

    Stuart wrote:
    “I took Champix (prescribed by doctor) for about 2 weeks, then stopped smoking. 3 days later I stopped taking Champix. I have had bad dreams and dizzy spells. It`s been 3 weeks since i stopped taking the drug and my dizzy spells have worsened. I am on the sick, as I cannot drive my articulated lorry in this state.”

    My reply:

    “Hi Stuart, thanks for contributing to the debate.

    As you may have realised, I am campaigning hard to get this drug banned. This is to try to protect people like yourself, who take doctors’ advice in good faith and find themselves worse off than they were before. The good news is, most people recover after a time. The other news is that no-one can tell how quickly, or how slowly that will occur. The really unwelcome news is that not everybody recovers, but I do want to stress that the majority do. Please make sure your doctor reports the drug through the official channels for the effect it had on you, otherwise the manufacturer has got away with it completely and the drug will stay on the market longer. The more people report the drug, the sooner it will be withdrawn and the more chance there is of getting compensation at some later date. To that end, I suggest you keep a written record of all the events and dates from the first day you were prescribed the drug, and keep it up to date because if there is a legal case to answer (and there certainly should be), you will need that information. Make sure your prescribing doctor is kept up to date with the progression of side effects too. That needs to be clearly noted in your medical records, and the link with Champix made clear.

    best regards and best wishes for a full recovery,
    Chris Holmes”

  20. Chris,

    Seems to me that a good few people who work for Pfizer are posting on this site saying how good this drug is and rubbishing what you/us say about how bad it is.. Evil drug companies will do anything to make money no matter who it effects.

    Jeremy

  21. Not only is that perfectly possible, Jeremy, it is a well-established marketing strategy, used both to promote specific products on blogs and also to try to undermine the credibility of the more outspoken critics of the big drug giants like Pfizer. However, it is also easy enough to mistake genuine contributions for the hype of drug-spam-goons (as I like to call them), so I give them all the benefit of the doubt and post them here anyway, but take issue with what they say. That’s never much of a challenge, as what they say is usually inane.

  22. I stumbled upon this site after just looking for some simple information about Champix and bloating, and I found this ridiculous waste of internet space. And there’s a book??? Do people have to pay money for your anger and poison. I knew about every possible side effect before I took Champix. I read the horror stories and successes for months before making the decision. I set up a support system and had close friends stay with me for the first month to make sure I didn’t go crazy. I didn’t and I’m fine. Yes, there are side effects, but if they are so bad stop taking the drug!! It’s common sense. I have had horrible side effects from other drugs and I never created entire websites or written books about it. I am grateful that the drug is available for those who choose to take it. There are risks to everything in life. Ignorance is no excuse. Now, I am going to go back to my life without all of your hatred in it.

  23. I like how everyone who has other ideas than you must work for a drug company! LOL. I am a school teacher.

  24. er… has it not occurred to you, Stephanie, that others may not have had the same experience as you? Clearly, you know very little about this subject, so I’m just going to leave it at that. But it might be a good idea to look at this.

  25. well I have posted here while on this drug 3 years ago this past March. so yes Champix worked for me. as for what has happened to some people. I will just say. I feel sorry for there family.

  26. Have been taking champix for a week and a half. Hate how it makes me feel sick even when I eat before taking it. Yesterday I had breakfast and took a pill. 15 minutes later I was in the bathroom vomiting. So even though it seems to help with the cravings, i am not going to have anymore. Oh yes, this was my third full strength pill. I was warned about the nausea but not the other side effects. (I found this site looking for information about the hot flushes).

  27. Forgot to say how mad I am at my doctor for not telling me about the side effects. Especially when he knows how I have suffered from chronic depression all my life

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