Quitting Shouldn't Feel Like Punishment

When society gets serious about helping people give something up, an interesting pattern tends to emerge. We don’t get better at telling people to stop, we get better at giving them something else.

Smoking is perhaps the clearest example. For decades, quitting meant removing cigarettes and enduring the cravings, withdrawal and loss of a familiar ritual. Then alternatives improved. Nicotine patches and gum helped, but vaping pushed even further by retaining many of the things smokers had become accustomed to. You hold something, inhaling and exhaling a cloud, all the while taking a break and receiving nicotine.

Whatever the wider debate around vaping, the evidence for its effectiveness as a smoking cessation tool is increasingly strong. A 2025 Cochrane review of 104 studies involving more than 30,000 adults found that nicotine e-cigarettes drastically improved quit rates compared with traditional nicotine replacement methods. Around 8–11 people in every 100 using nicotine e-cigarettes successfully quit smoking for at least six months, compared with roughly 6 in 100 using nicotine replacement therapy (Lindson et al., 2025).

Furthermore, alcohol appears to be moving in a similar direction. Not long ago, choosing not to drink in a pub often meant being seen to settle for water, a soft drink or a fairly unconvincing alcohol-free beer. Today, non-alcoholic alternatives provide a convincing replica in both taste and appearance whilst removing the effects of alcohol itself.

The lesson isn’t that vaping or alcohol-free beer are perfect solutions. It’s that removing a behaviour becomes easier when you don’t remove everything people enjoyed about it.

Gambling has yet to find its equivalent.

When somebody stops gambling, they aren’t necessarily just giving up the possibility of winning money. Gambling might provide anticipation, competition, excitement, escape, social interaction or simply something to do. A bet can make an otherwise meaningless football match feel important. A casino game can turn boredom into stimulation within seconds. Modern gambling products have been relentlessly optimised to deliver these experiences at minimal effort compared to any other viable alternative.

Then consider what we traditionally offer someone trying to stop: block the websites, restrict your bank account, attend a meeting, talk about your losses and try not to gamble again.

These interventions can be valuable, but they often begin with the same assumption that stopping gambling is mainly about giving something up. Often giving up quite a lot. It can become woven into someone’s routines, relationships and even sense of normality, which is why simply removing it can leave such a large gap. If gambling is the most exciting part of someone’s week, quitting means losing the most exciting part of their week. If it is how they socialise, stopping can create isolation. If they gamble because they are bored, stopping leaves them bored. The money may be protected, but the time, stimulation and sense of purpose still need somewhere to go.

The challenge then is not only to help people stop gambling, but rather to help them regain a sustainable sense of normality. That might mean rebuilding ordinary routines, finding enjoyable ways to spend an evening or gradually rediscovering the interests that gambling pushed aside.

The aim should not be to create a life organised around avoiding gambling, but to make gambling less central because life has become fuller without it.

Perhaps this is where gambling can learn something from smoking and alcohol. Instead of viewing quitting entirely through restriction and avoidance which in today’s technologically centric world is almost impossible, we should put more emphasis on the equivalent value of the user’s habit. The £50 that wasn’t gambled could become dinner with friends. Money saved over several weeks could contribute towards a trip. An evening that would normally disappear into betting could become something worth remembering. Progress could be measured not only by days without gambling, but by the return of ordinary pleasures, routines and choices.

The emphasis changes from “look at everything gambling has taken from you” to “look at everything you are getting back.”

There is also an uncomfortable irony here. Gambling companies have understood behavioural science for years, utilising features like instant feedback, bonuses, notifications, rewards, personalisation, and promotions as constant opportunities to re-engage. Yet when someone decides they want to change their relationship with gambling, we often respond with restriction, appointments, forms and reminders of negative consequences. We shouldn’t be surprised if the exciting behaviour sometimes wins that competition.

This isn’t an argument against therapy, peer support or practical controls. For many people, these tools are essential. But they shouldn’t be the limit of our ambition.

Smoking cessation and alcohol reduction have shown that change is easier when people are offered meaningful alternatives, not just told what to give up. Gambling harm reduction should do the same. Stopping shouldn’t feel like losing the most exciting part of life. It should be about getting it back.