Use the fast-acting nicotine you should have in your pocket, gum, lozenge or spray, then leave the room you are in and give it a few minutes. A craving arrives, peaks and drops away. It does not build indefinitely until you give in, even though that is exactly what it feels like from the inside.
That is the routine. The rest of this page is why it works, and what to do in the specific moments that keep catching people out.
What a craving actually does
It comes in a wave. There is a build, a peak where it takes up your whole head, and then a fall. Most people find the whole thing is over in a few minutes, which is a strange thing to read while you are in one.
Two things make it feel longer. First, you are not counting, you are negotiating. Second, if the trigger stays in front of you, the wave comes back. Standing in the smoking area with a lighter in your hand and waiting it out is not a plan, it is a queue.
So the routine has two halves. Take the edge off, and change what you are looking at.
The five minutes, in order
- **Take the fast-acting form.** Gum, lozenge, inhalator or mouth spray, whichever you were given. It has to be physically on you, not in a drawer at home. This is the single most common failure and it happens before the craving does.
- **Stand up and change the room.** Different room, corridor, outside the other door, anywhere that is not the chair the urge started in.
- **Give your hands something.** A drink, a pen, your keys, a phone call. A lot of what you miss is the object, not the nicotine.
- **Say the time out loud.** "It is twenty past three." Then check again at twenty five past. Counting turns an endless feeling into a short one.
- **Do not decide anything.** You are not deciding whether to quit forever. You are deciding about the next five minutes, and that is a much easier decision to win.
If you have not got NRT yet, the other four still work. Then get the NRT, because doing this on nothing several times a day is the version of quitting most people fail at. [Patches, gum, vapes: what actually helps](/guides/nicotine/nrt-vapes-and-what-actually-helps-you-quit) covers what to ask for.
The moments that catch people out
Cravings are not evenly spread. They cluster on the pairings you built, sometimes over decades.
**The first one of the day.** The strongest for most people, and it arrives before you are awake enough to argue. Have the fast-acting form by the kettle, not in your coat.
**After a meal.** Get up. Do the washing up, walk round the block, anything that ends the meal properly instead of leaving a gap where the cigarette used to sit.
**With a drink.** Alcohol removes the part of you that was going to hold the line. Decide before you go out, not at the bar, and tell whoever you are with what you have decided.
**The smoking break.** This one is social, not chemical. You are not craving the cigarette so much as the ten minutes and the company. Take the break anyway, at the same time, and do something else with it.
**In the car.** A confined space with a fixed routine attached. Clean it out, change what plays, take the other route for a fortnight.
If you keep getting caught by moments you cannot name, the work is in [the cigarettes you do not notice](/guides/nicotine/the-cigarettes-you-dont-notice).
What not to do
**Do not have one puff to take the edge off.** Not because one puff is a moral collapse, but because it reliably teaches you that the craving ends when you smoke. That is the lesson you are trying to unlearn, and you will pay for it with the next one.
**Do not ration your NRT to prove something.** Underdosing is the standard mistake. Chewing one piece of gum a day, feeling terrible, and concluding NRT does not work for you is a dosing problem wearing the costume of a character flaw.
**Do not wait it out in the trigger.** Sitting in the exact spot, holding the exact object, staring at the thing you want, is the hardest available version of this.
**Do not white-knuckle in silence.** Tell someone you are in one. It sounds small and it changes how long the five minutes feels.
When the cravings change shape
In the first fortnight, cravings come from your body. Smokefree.gov puts the shape of it plainly: "the worst withdrawal symptoms usually last less than two weeks, but that time can be really tough." That is what [the first 72 hours without nicotine](/guides/nicotine/the-first-72-hours-without-nicotine) is about.
After that they change. They get rarer, shorter, and much more specific, triggered by a place, a person, a smell, a bad afternoon. That is why a craving can turn up months in and feel like the first week again. It is not evidence that nothing has changed. It is a cue firing, and it passes faster than the early ones did.
The number worth holding on to comes from the NHS: "Once you reach 28 days smoke-free, you're much more likely to quit for good!"
If you gave in
Then you gave in, and this page is not the referee. One cigarette is a slip, and what you do in the next hour decides whether it stays one. [You had one, what now](/guides/nicotine/you-had-one-what-now) has the four things to do.
Some people find it helps to have the count of days and the times that keep catching them out visible on their phone rather than kept in their head. That is what Renovyn does, alongside a stop smoking service rather than instead of one.
Common questions
How long does a nicotine craving last?
Most people find one crests and passes within a few minutes, though it comes back if you stay in front of the trigger. The wider withdrawal is a different timescale: Smokefree.gov says the worst of it usually lasts less than two weeks.
Does distraction really work, or is that just something people say?
It works because the wave is short and because it moves you out of the situation that produced it. It is not willpower training. If distraction alone is not holding, the missing piece is usually the fast-acting nicotine, not more resolve.
Should I use gum every single time I get a craving?
Dose is a question for a stop smoking adviser or a pharmacist, and it is a completely normal thing to ask them. What we will say is that most people take too little rather than too much, and that they are free from an NHS service.
Why am I still getting cravings months later?
Because they stop being about withdrawal and start being about cues. A pub doorway, a particular junction, the smell on someone's coat. They are shorter and further apart, and the plan for month three onwards is in [staying stopped past month three](/guides/nicotine/staying-stopped-past-month-three).
Sources
- [Smokefree.gov, Withdrawal](https://smokefree.gov/challenges-when-quitting/withdrawal). How long the worst of nicotine withdrawal lasts.
- [NHS Better Health, Quit smoking](https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/quit-smoking/). The 28 day milestone and the free NHS Quit Smoking app.
- [NHS Stop Smoking Services help you quit](https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/quit-smoking/nhs-stop-smoking-services-help-you-quit/). Free treatment and support, and how to be referred.
