The withdrawal effects are more like kicking a heroin addiction.
People who quit smoking are actually quitting a synergistic cocktail of drugs - nicotine and a variety of MAO inhibitors found in tobacco smoke. There is good evidence to suggest that these MAOI components dramatically increase the addictiveness of nicotine.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01618...
I realize I'm an outlier.
IANAE though.
Either way. I was a smoker but not a heroin user and quitting was the hardest thing for me. It took me almost a month to feel normal.
I smoked one pack spread out 2 or 3 days, for about 3 years (in college). Rarely would do a full pack in a day.
Quitting was pure torture. I stayed up 24 hours walking laps around my campus. Took like four full days for cravings to go away.
Haven't had a cigarette in 10 yrs. Occasionally enjoy a cigar without problems
Here’s one for you https://academic.oup.com/ntr/article/20/9/1038/4096884
But I don't really care. It doesn't sound true but it also doesn't change anything.
Quitting cigarettes was trivial. I decided not to buy a pack that day and then never bought another pack. That's my anecdotal contribution to the discussion.
Less anecdotally:
Opioid withdrawal, in extreme cases, has killed people from persistent vomiting and diarrhea. It has measurable physical symptoms with an understood pathophysiology largely connected to the cAMP-signaling system.
Nicotine withdrawal is far less understood, to the degree it has been classified at all (mostly in studies of mice). It certainly has never killed anyone, you're not going to shit yourself to death. They're not comparable to one another.
There's evidence for this, too -- he quit using heroin decades ago, but only managed to quit smoking a few years back.
So it seems to be true, at least for him.
For me, quitting smoking was easier than quitting coffee addiction. Coffee is everywhere, cheap, and consumption is all but encouraged. If I were to smoke I take on all sorts of baggage. Much of smoking is about being a smoker which is a mindset and community that is hard to leave. Social effects can be much stronger than physical dependence.
Operative phrase here: "for you".
As a substance its no where near as addicting as heroin, no one would actually ruin their lives for nicotine in case it was illegal and expensive.
a) The downsides to smoking are far longer term and harder to feel daily
b) You're surrounded by smokers, you can literally smell them smoking just by walking down the street
c) Smoking is legal. You can just go buy a pack.
I am unsurprised that quitting smoking is harder for some people, given that. But in terms of withdrawal symptoms, that's where I think heroin is probably worse. But I also don't really know. So far someone linked a Google search and an irrelevant paper.