I think a person just has to flail around until they find a method that works for them. But as you say, the essential ingredient in whatever method is that you have to want to quit.

Walt Robertson, who had smoked longer than I had, didn't have any trouble quitting cold-turkey. He had developed emphysema and it was getting worse. He'd have to stop halfway up a flight of stairs and pant for awhile before proceeding and not surprisingly, it was also interfering with his acting. At one point, a doctor told him he absolutely had to quit smoking. When Walt sort of brushed it off, the doctor looked him square in the eye and said, "if you don't quit, in a year or less, you'll be dead!" It sank in that the doctor was not kidding. Walt said that he stopped right there -- without a twitch. All his urge to smoke was gone! Unfortunately, even at that, he didn't quit soon enough. A couple of years later, he learned he had cancer.

Scarin' the crap out of you is a pretty rough way, but sometimes even that works.

Don Firth