How Pam Nguyen Combined Nicotine Patches With Acupuncture to Finally Quit

Pam Nguyen is 42 years old, lives in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, and has been a licensed acupuncturist for 14 years. She’s helped hundreds of patients manage pain, anxiety, and stress through traditional Chinese medicine. She also smoked a pack a day for nearly two decades.

“Yeah, the irony was not lost on me,” she says, laughing. “I’d finish treating a patient for stress-related tension, walk out the back door, and light up a Marlboro Light. I knew exactly how ridiculous it looked.”

Pam agreed to share her story because she thinks there’s a gap in how people talk about quitting smoking. Most advice falls into one of two camps: use pharmaceutical products, or try alternative therapies. She did both. And she’s convinced the combination is what made it stick.

The Acupuncturist Who Couldn’t Take Her Own Advice

Pam started smoking at 23, right around the time she was finishing her master’s program in traditional Chinese medicine at Bastyr University. The stress of clinicals, board exams, and building a practice from scratch all piled up. A friend offered her a cigarette outside a bar in Capitol Hill, and that was that.

“I tell people smoking got its hooks in me fast. Within a month I was buying my own packs. Within three months I was a pack-a-day smoker. I went from zero to full addiction that quick.”

For years, she compartmentalized it. At work she was the calm, centered practitioner who talked about qi flow and meridian balance. At home, on breaks, and on weekends, she smoked constantly. She kept mouthwash in her clinic bag and changed her jacket between patients.

“My patients didn’t know. My colleagues mostly didn’t know. But I knew. And the cognitive dissonance was eating me alive. I’m literally treating people with needles to help their bodies heal, and I’m poisoning mine with every break I take.”

She tried quitting with acupuncture alone twice. The NADA protocol (National Acupuncture Detoxification Association) targets five points on the ear that are supposed to help with addiction. She had a colleague treat her three times a week for six weeks.

“It helped with the anxiety and irritability. Genuinely. I slept better, I felt calmer. But I was still craving cigarettes all day long. The physical withdrawal was brutal and acupuncture alone wasn’t touching the nicotine piece.”

Admitting That Eastern Medicine Needed a Partner

Pam describes the moment she walked into a Bartell Drugs in the University District and bought her first box of Habitrol 21mg patches as “humbling.”

“I felt like a fraud. Here I am, someone who has built her entire career on traditional medicine, standing in the pharmacy aisle reading the back of a nicotine patch box. But I was also being honest with myself for the first time. Acupuncture is powerful. It does real things to the nervous system. But nicotine addiction has a chemical component that needs a chemical answer.”

She paid about $32 for a two-week supply of Habitrol 21mg patches. She chose Habitrol over NicoDerm CQ because it was cheaper and a colleague who’d quit smoking recommended it.

“The price difference matters when you’re self-employed and paying for your own everything. Habitrol was like ten bucks less per box than NicoDerm CQ. Same active ingredient, same dosage. I’m a pragmatist even if I work in traditional medicine.”

Building the Dual Protocol

Here’s where Pam’s professional background actually became an asset. She didn’t just slap on a patch and hope for the best. She designed what she calls her “dual protocol,” treating her quit attempt like she’d treat a complex patient case.

The Western medicine side: Habitrol patches, starting at 21mg for the first six weeks, stepping down to 14mg for two weeks, then 7mg for the final two weeks. Standard stuff. She applied the patch every morning after her shower, rotating between her upper arm and shoulder blade.

The Eastern medicine side: She had her colleague Diane perform acupuncture on her three times a week for the first four weeks, then twice a week for the next four weeks. They focused on the NADA ear protocol plus body points that target the lungs (Lung 7, specifically), the stress response (Heart 7), and what’s called the “four gates” pattern for overall qi movement.

“I also did acupressure on myself between sessions. There’s a point on the ear called Shen Men that you can press with your fingertip when a craving hits. I was pressing that point probably 30 times a day during week one.”

She also drank chrysanthemum tea constantly, which in traditional Chinese medicine is considered cooling and detoxifying for the lungs. “Is there a clinical trial proving chrysanthemum tea helps you quit smoking? No. Did it give me something warm to hold and sip when I wanted a cigarette? Absolutely.”

Week One: The Worst and the Best

Pam’s quit date was a Monday in September. She put on her first Habitrol patch at 6 AM and went to work.

“The patch handled the nicotine withdrawal better than I expected. By noon I hadn’t had a cigarette and I wasn’t climbing the walls. I was uncomfortable, sure. My brain kept going, ‘Hey, it’s time for a smoke break.’ But the physical desperation wasn’t there the way it was when I tried to quit cold turkey years ago.”

She had her first acupuncture session that afternoon. “Diane put the needles in and I just cried. Not because of pain. Because I was actually doing it. I was quitting. And I was using every tool available to me instead of being stubborn about it.”

The combination during that first week created what Pam describes as a “two-front approach to a two-front problem.”

“Nicotine addiction is physical AND emotional. The patches handled the physical. The acupuncture handled the emotional. When I had a craving, the patch kept it from being overwhelming, and the acupuncture sessions kept my nervous system calm enough that I wasn’t a wreck between cravings.”

She did have side effects from the patches. Some skin irritation at the application site, and vivid dreams that woke her up at 3 AM more than once. “The dreams were wild. I dreamed I was smoking in places that don’t exist, like a cigarette lounge on the moon. My brain was processing the loss of something it had relied on for 19 years.”

She started taking the patch off 30 minutes before bed, which helped with the dreams. “That’s actually a tip I got from reading forums online, not from the Habitrol instructions. The box says you can wear it 24 hours or 16 hours. I found the 16-hour approach worked better for sleep.”

The Middle Weeks: Finding a Rhythm

By week three, Pam had settled into a routine. Patch on in the morning. Acupressure throughout the day. Acupuncture sessions on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Chrysanthemum tea instead of smoke breaks.

“I won’t pretend it was easy. I still wanted to smoke. Especially after a long day of seeing patients. Especially when it rained, which in Seattle is basically always. There’s something about gray, drizzly weather that made me want to stand under the awning behind my clinic and light up.”

She replaced the smoking ritual with a different one. After her last patient of the day, she’d step outside, do two minutes of deep breathing exercises (a qigong technique she’d learned in grad school), then go back inside and drink tea. “It sounds cheesy but I needed to replace the ritual, not just remove it. Smoking was my transition between work mode and done-for-the-day mode. I needed a new transition.”

Her acupuncturist colleague Diane noticed changes in Pam’s pulses (in traditional Chinese medicine, practitioners read multiple pulse positions on each wrist to assess organ function). “Diane told me my lung pulse was getting stronger by week three. Now, a skeptic would say that’s subjective and maybe placebo. Fine. But I also noticed I wasn’t getting winded walking up the hill to my clinic anymore. That’s not subjective.”

Stepping Down and the Tricky Transition

At week six, Pam moved from the 21mg Habitrol patch to the 14mg. This is where a lot of people struggle, and Pam was no exception.

“The first two days on 14mg were rough. Not as bad as the first day with no cigarettes at all, but rough. I was irritable. I snapped at my partner over nothing. I had this low-grade headache that wouldn’t quit.”

She increased her acupuncture sessions back to three times a week during the step-down transition. “That’s the advantage of the dual approach. When the Western medicine side gets harder, you can lean more on the Eastern side. I had Diane focus on calming points, stress reduction, headache relief. It took the edge off within 24 hours.”

By the time she stepped down to 7mg at week eight, the transition was smoother. “My body had adjusted. The cravings were less frequent and less intense. I was going hours without thinking about cigarettes, which felt impossible two months earlier.”

She finished her last 7mg patch on a Sunday night in November, about ten weeks after her quit date.

What She Thinks About the “Patches vs. Alternative Medicine” Debate

Pam has strong opinions about how the quitting-smoking conversation gets framed, and she thinks both sides get it wrong.

“The medical establishment tends to dismiss acupuncture for smoking cessation because the clinical evidence is mixed. And they’re right that acupuncture alone doesn’t have strong enough data. I tried it alone. It wasn’t enough. But that doesn’t mean it adds nothing.”

“On the other side, some alternative medicine practitioners push back against nicotine replacement therapy because it’s ‘just substituting one chemical for another.’ That argument drives me crazy. Yes, patches deliver nicotine. That’s the whole point. You’re weaning your body off gradually instead of shocking it. That’s harm reduction, and it works.”

She believes the combination worked better than either approach alone because they target different aspects of addiction.

“Patches handle the pharmacological dependency. Acupuncture handles the nervous system dysregulation, the stress, the emotional patterns that make you reach for a cigarette. If you only address one side, you’re fighting with one hand tied behind your back.”

She’s now recommending this combined approach to patients at her own clinic who are trying to quit. She doesn’t treat herself (professional ethics), but she does offer acupuncture alongside whatever nicotine replacement therapy her patients are already using.

“I tell them the same thing I’m telling you: neither one alone did it for me. Both together did. Your mileage may vary, but why not give yourself every advantage?”

The Numbers

Pam kept a spreadsheet because that’s the kind of person she is. Here’s what her quit looked like by the numbers:

Cost of Habitrol patches for 10 weeks: About $160 total (she bought the 21mg, 14mg, and 7mg boxes at different times)
Cost of acupuncture sessions: Her colleague Diane charged her a discounted rate of $40 per session. Over the roughly 20 sessions she did, that was $800. “Not cheap. But I was spending $300 a month on cigarettes, so it paid for itself within about three months of not smoking.”
Days until first full day without a craving: 47
Pounds gained: 8, which she lost over the following six months by hiking more
Current status: 14 months smoke-free as of this writing

Advice From Pam

“Don’t let anyone tell you there’s only one right way to quit. Patches work. They’re backed by solid research. If you want to add acupuncture, find a licensed acupuncturist (check NCCAOM certification) and specifically ask about the NADA protocol for addiction. Not every acupuncturist does it.”

“If you can’t afford acupuncture, learn the acupressure points yourself. Shen Men on the ear, Lung 7 on the wrist, Heart 7 on the wrist. YouTube has decent tutorials. Press firmly for 30 seconds when a craving hits. It’s not as effective as needles, but it’s free and it helps.”

“Also, be honest about what’s not working. I wasted two years trying to quit with acupuncture alone because I was too proud to use patches. That pride cost me two more years of smoking. Don’t be me. Use everything available to you.”

For more about nicotine patch options and what to expect, check out our guide on nicotine patch side effects and our Habitrol review.

Pam still practices acupuncture in Seattle. She still drinks chrysanthemum tea every afternoon. She hasn’t smoked since November 2024.

“I tell my patients all the time: healing isn’t about picking a lane. It’s about using every tool in the toolbox. Western, Eastern, whatever works. Just quit.”