I quit after 3 tries in 1984. No patches, no gum. What they don't tell you is to expect some mild depression, and a lot of phlem. Change your routine so you don't fall back on ritual smoking. My third (and successful) attempt at quitting began the first night of a four-day weekend visiting a girl at a college the next state over. I pulled back the bed covers to fetch a cigarette and she said, "Stop! If you get up to get those cigarettes, you might as well get dressed and leave, because, you're not getting back in my bed." I refer to this as the "Lysistrata" method (Google it) and I doubt it would have worked after I hit 50. The upside is after a couple of years the urge to smoke left me completely. The girl left me after a couple of months.