Free Stop Smoking Support: What Already Exists

What this page is

This site is published by the makers of Liberto, a hypnosis app for stopping smoking. That is a commercial interest and it shapes what most quit-smoking sites tell you. This page is the test of whether we can be trusted on the other nineteen: it is about the free help that already exists, most of which has better trial evidence behind it than hypnosis does. If a method below suits you better than an app, that is a good outcome, not a lost sale.

What follows is what is available, who runs it, what it costs, and what the trials found.

Behavioural support: what it is and what the evidence says

Behavioural support means talking to a trained person about quitting, in person or by phone, usually in sessions of 15 to 60 minutes. It is not counselling in the psychotherapy sense. It is practical: setting a date, identifying the situations where you smoke, planning what to do instead, and reviewing what went wrong last time.

The Cochrane review of behavioural interventions for smoking cessation found that this kind of support increases the number of people who stop compared with no support, and that the effect is larger when more sessions are attended. The same body of work found that combining behavioural support with medication produces higher quit rates than either behavioural support alone or medication alone. That finding is the strongest single argument for using a service rather than going it alone.

If you have stopped before and started again, the sessions are where the previous attempt gets examined. Most people who relapse do so in a small number of predictable situations. Naming those situations in advance is most of the work.

National quitlines and helplines

A quitline is a phone line staffed by trained advisors. In the United States the national service is 1-800-QUIT-NOW, run through state programmes, and it offers free telephone coaching, usually several calls over a few weeks, plus written materials. In England the equivalent is the NHS Smokefree service, and in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland there are separate national services. Smokers’ helplines in other countries are listed by the World Health Organization.

What to expect: an initial call of 20 to 40 minutes, a plan, and follow-up calls you can schedule around work. Some lines offer text or web chat instead. The service is free and does not require a referral from a doctor.

A quitline is a reasonable first call if you do not want to attend anything in person, or if there is nothing near you.

Stop smoking services, clinics and pharmacies

Stop smoking services are the in-person version. In the UK they are commissioned by local authorities and run through the NHS; you can refer yourself, and in most areas you can also be referred by a GP, dentist or pharmacist. A course typically runs for several weeks with weekly appointments, and it includes carbon monoxide monitoring, which gives you a number rather than a feeling.

In the United States, similar programmes run through state health departments, hospital systems and community health centres. Searching for a cessation programme near you will usually surface the state-funded option first.

Pharmacies are the other route. Many pharmacies run stop smoking schemes where a pharmacist provides weekly support and, where it is part of the scheme, supplies nicotine replacement. In the UK, some pharmacies provide nicotine replacement on the NHS without a prescription through these schemes. Ask at the counter what your local pharmacy offers; the answer varies by area.

Medication and nicotine replacement: whose decision it is

Nicotine replacement therapy — patches, gum, lozenges, sprays, inhalators — is available without prescription in most countries. The Cochrane review of nicotine replacement therapy found that it increases quit rates compared with placebo, and that combining a patch with a faster-acting form works better than a single form.

Varenicline and bupropion are prescription medicines. The Cochrane review of varenicline found it more effective than placebo and more effective than a single form of nicotine replacement in the trials reviewed. Bupropion also has trial support, though generally lower than varenicline’s.

Whether any of these is appropriate for you is a decision for you and your doctor, not for this page and not for an app. There are conditions and interactions that change the picture, and only a clinician who knows your history can weigh them. What this page can say is what the trials found, and that the trials found medication plus behavioural support outperforms either alone.

What free support actually looks like

The last row is the one that concerns this site. The Cochrane review of hypnotherapy for smoking cessation found no clear evidence that hypnotherapy performs better than other interventions. Hypnosis is not a method with stronger trial support than nicotine replacement or prescription medication. It is an option some people use, and the evidence for it is weaker. If you are choosing between them on the basis of what has been tested, the tested options are behavioural support, nicotine replacement and prescription medication.

Free kits, apps and materials by mail

Several national services post a free quit kit: printed materials, sometimes nicotine replacement samples, sometimes a schedule. The US service offers materials through state quitlines; the NHS Smokefree service offers a free quit kit by mail in England. Availability changes, so check the current offer on the service’s own site rather than a third-party page.

Free apps exist. So do paid ones, including this one. An app is a delivery mechanism for behavioural techniques, not a separate treatment with its own evidence base. If you use one, the useful parts are the same as in a session: a quit date, a plan for specific situations, and something that records what happened when a craving hit.

Support groups and what day three is like

Support groups run through stop smoking services, hospitals and some community organisations. They are free and they are weekly. The advantage over a phone call is that the other people in the room are at the same stage, and the person who relapsed last week is sitting there saying what happened.

On day three, nicotine has largely left the body. What remains is the part that is not chemical: irritability, restlessness, difficulty concentrating, and cravings that arrive in waves and pass. Most physical withdrawal symptoms peak in the first week and ease over two to four weeks. Cravings themselves can continue to appear for longer, usually becoming less frequent and less intense.

None of that is encouragement. It is the timetable. Knowing that the peak is early and the tail is long is more useful at 11pm than being told you can do it.

If you have stopped before and started again

The services above are designed for repeat attempts. A stop smoking service will ask what happened last time, and the answer shapes the plan: if the relapse happened at a particular time of day, or with a particular person, or after a particular drink, that is the thing to plan around.

Behavioural support plus medication has the strongest trial support of anything described on this page. Hypnosis has weaker evidence. That is the honest ranking, and it does not change because the company that publishes this site sells a hypnosis app.