Somewhere along the way, "it takes seven attempts to quit" became one of those facts everyone knows. It gets repeated in doctors' waiting rooms and on quit-smoking websites, usually as reassurance. The number is almost certainly wrong — and the research that replaced it is both more discouraging and, oddly, more useful.
Where the number came from, and why it's too low
Counting quit attempts is harder than it sounds. If you ask people who have already succeeded how many goes it took, you get a tidy, low number — but you've quietly excluded everyone still trying, who by definition has made more attempts than they'd like. That selection problem is the reason the familiar figures are optimistic.
The researchers who put this most clearly were Michael Chaiton and colleagues, writing in BMJ Open in 2016. They open by naming the problem directly:
"Previous estimates have been based on lifetime recall in cross-sectional samples of successful quitters only."
— Chaiton et al., BMJ Open
So they did it the other way round. They took 1,277 people from the Ontario Tobacco Survey who had made a quit attempt, and followed them every six months for up to three years — successes and failures alike.
Then they calculated the answer four different ways, which is the honest thing to do and also the reason this study is worth trusting. Under assumptions matching the older research, the average was 6.1 attempts. Using a constant-rate approach, 19.6. Using the method they judged least biased, 29.6. And under an approach that folded in recall history, an implausible 142.
Their own conclusion was that understanding it may take 30 or more quit attempts could help set realistic clinical expectations. Two caveats worth stating: this is Canadian data, not Australian, and the spread between 6 and 142 tells you how much the answer depends on how you ask. But the floor of that range is already roughly the seven everyone quotes — and the best-supported estimate is four times higher.
The practical lesson isn't "you'll fail 29 times". It's that a failed attempt is the ordinary unit of progress, not a verdict on whether you can do it.
What actually happens in the first week
Most attempts end fast. A review from the University of Pennsylvania notes that as many as 50–75% of smokers relapse within the first week of a quit attempt — which is also the week nicotine withdrawal peaks. Those two facts are not a coincidence.
And going it alone is harder than most people assume. Summarising the established figure, Jackson, West and Brown put it this way:
"Fewer than 5% of unaided attempts succeeding for 12 months or more."
— Jackson, West & Brown
Unaided means no medication, no counselling, no support — willpower on its own. It works for some people. It works for fewer than one in twenty. (That 5% figure isn't their own finding; they're citing the long-standing US clinical practice guideline on tobacco dependence. It's a well-worn number, but worth knowing whose it is.)
Do you have to wait before trying again?
A common piece of advice is to leave it a while after a failed attempt — let things settle, regroup, come back stronger. The same 2020 study actually tested that, and the answer is: probably not, and certainly not on this evidence.
The researchers followed 823 smokers who had failed a quit attempt and then tried again, sorting them by how long they'd waited. Of those who waited under 3 months, 13.8% succeeded. Three to six months: 17.5%. Six to twelve: 19.0%.
The numbers drift upward, which looks like it supports waiting — but the authors are careful, and so should we be: "This difference was not statistically significant, with data proving insensitive." In other words, the study wasn't large enough to tell whether that pattern is real or noise.
Which means the honest read is that there's no good evidence you need to wait. If you want to go again next week, go again next week.
The Australian numbers are better than the reputation suggests
Here's the part that doesn't get repeated as often as the seven-attempts line. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2025 asked people who smoke about the previous twelve months. Among them:
- 25% successfully quit for more than a month — up from 20% in 2022–23.
- 19% tried and didn't manage it — down from 28%.
- 35% reduced the amount they smoked.
A quarter of people who smoke got more than a month clear, in a single year. That is a much larger group than the folklore implies. And the failed-attempt share fell by nine points in two years.
The long view is starker still. Daily smoking among Australians aged 14 and over has gone from 19.5% in 2001 to 5.6% in 2025 — roughly 1.3 million people, down from a country where it was close to one in five. The proportion who had ever smoked fell from 49% to 31% across the same period. Millions of Australians have done this. Most of them took more than one go.
Most people want to stop, and most are doing something about it
Two more findings from the same survey, because together they reframe what a quit attempt is.
66% of people who smoke intend to quit at some point. A third don't, which is worth stating plainly rather than pretending otherwise. But two thirds do.
61% took part in at least one activity to help them quit or cut down in 2025. Not 61% of the people who quit — 61% of everyone who smokes. Nicotine replacement therapy was used by 15%. Use of e-cigarettes as a quit aid fell to 7.8%, down from 12% two years earlier.
Which means the typical person who smokes in Australia is not a person who has given up on giving up. They're someone mid-attempt, or between attempts.
What moves people to try
Cost, mostly. In the 2025 survey, 48% named the price of tobacco as a motivator to quit or cut down — the single most common reason, ahead of health concerns. Australia's excise-driven pricing is doing a lot of the work, whatever you think of it as policy.
The health side remains the larger stake. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates smoking kills almost 20,500 Australians a year.
How to use any of this
Three things follow from the numbers, and none of them is "try harder".
Stop counting attempts as failures. If the realistic figure is well north of seven, then attempt number four isn't evidence you can't do it. It's evidence you're in the normal distribution.
Don't do it unaided if you can avoid it. Under 5% at a year is a hard ceiling to argue with. Support — counselling, NRT, structure, other people — shifts the odds, and the shift is measurable.
Plan for week one specifically. It's where most attempts end. Treat it as a discrete problem with its own plan, rather than the opening stretch of a general intention.
Quitline is 13 7848, free from anywhere in Australia, and its counsellors cover vaping as well as smoking. The Australian Government's My QuitBuddy app is also free.
CURBi is a nicotine-free chewable formulated to support mood, focus and calm through the hard stretch. It contains no nicotine, so there's nothing in it to stay dependent on, and it can be used on its own or alongside nicotine replacement therapy.
CURBi is listed in the ARTG: Mixed Berry AUST L 527257 · Watermelon AUST L 527256 · Mango Passionfruit AUST L 527251. It is not a nicotine replacement therapy and does not contain nicotine, and it is not a substitute for advice from your doctor or pharmacist. Always read the label and follow the directions for use. If symptoms persist, talk to your health professional.
Sources
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Tobacco smoking, National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2025.
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. NDSHS 2025: tobacco and nicotine insights.
- Jackson SE, West R, Brown J. If at first you don't succeed, when should you try again? A prospective study of failed quit attempts and subsequent smoking cessation. Addictive Behaviors, 2020;106:106366.
- Ashare RL, Falcone M, Lerman C. Cognitive function during nicotine withdrawal: implications for nicotine dependence treatment. Neuropharmacology, 2014.
- Chaiton M, Diemert L, Cohen JE, et al. Estimating the number of quit attempts it takes to quit smoking successfully in a longitudinal cohort of smokers. BMJ Open, 2016;6:e011045.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics. Smoking and vaping, latest release.
- Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. My QuitBuddy app.