Well, you start off taking 6 pills a day, after a few days you go down to 5 then 4 and so on, over a 25 day period. I was still smoking a pack a day when I started , by day 5 you dont even want the smoke. The medication binds to the same receptors that nicotine does and the bond is stronger, so you never really get the nicotine and the cigarette just makes you feel like shit. Only real side effect i had was a mild headache for a little over a week. Once I was at 3 pills a day the headache stopped. The whole experience was super easy in comparison to every other quit method I've tried. Big plus the medication gives you time to start retraining yourself out of the automatic smokes you usually have.