You've gotten over the "habits" of lighting up, oral satisfaction, etc., but you still have that physical addiction to nicotine, which is dead serious, said to be stronger even than heroin addiction.

Finding yet a third "delivery system" for this drug (e.g., a patch) won't be a help to you at this point. Your only alternative is to stop using the gum. Tapering off gradually will probably be easier than going "cold turkey," but it really depends upon your personality type. Some people actually find it easier to quit abruptly than to prolong the agony.

A good friend of mine, an American living in Japan, was a very heavy cigarette smoker. In Japan, as you may know, smoking is more than socially acceptable and is allowed everywhere. When he visited the US, he used to buy and chew lots of that gum, not to quit, but to maintain a constant ongoing intake of nicotine, even when in no-smoking environments.

Sadly, he passed away last year. Not from lung cancer or anything like that, but by drowning while scuba-diving off Fiji. I never learned all the details, but I suspect that his chain-smoking may have been a factor ~ his lung capacity was undoubtedly very compromised.