How to Quit Hans: A Simple 30-Day Plan

Short answer: pick a quit date, cut down in the week before it, and keep something tobacco-free to put under your lip so the habit has somewhere to go. When a craving hits, wait it out for ten minutes. If you want someone in your corner, call the free National Tobacco Quitline on 1800-11-2356.

Why Hans is hard to quit

There are two things holding you, and you need a plan for both.

The first is nicotine. Hans delivers it straight through your gums, and when it wears off your body asks for the next packet.

The second is the routine. After food, with tea, on the bike, on a break with friends. After enough months, your hand reaches for the packet before you have even thought about it.

Most people who fail only fight the nicotine and leave the routine untouched. This plan deals with both.

Photo from news reports. Faces blurred.

Before you start

• Pick a quit date in the next seven days. A weekend or a holiday makes the first day easier.
• Notice your triggers. For a few days, pay attention to when you reach for Hans. After meals? While driving? When you are stressed?
• Tell one person you trust and ask them to check in on you.
• Have a replacement ready. Keep a tobacco-free pouch, a water bottle and some sugar-free gum in the places where your Hans used to be.

Week 1: cut down, then stop

Use half your usual number of packets each day until the quit date. On the day itself, throw away every packet you have, including the ones in your bag and your vehicle.

When the moment comes where you would normally use Hans, use a herbal pouch instead. Your mouth still gets the cool kick from menthol and black pepper, but there is no tobacco and no nicotine in it.

Week 2: get through the cravings

This is usually the hardest week. You may feel irritable, sleep badly and want Hans badly. That is your body getting used to life without nicotine, and it passes. When a craving comes:

• Wait ten minutes. Look at the clock. The urge almost always fades before then.
• Drink a full glass of water, slowly.
• Move. Walk, call a friend, wash your face.
• Breathe out longer than you breathe in. Four counts in, six counts out, five times.

Weeks 3 and 4: change the routine

• Shake up the moments that used to come with Hans. Have tea somewhere else, take a different route, sit in a new spot after lunch.
• Use your replacement pouch only at those old Hans moments, and let yourself need it a little less each week.
• Keep the money you would have spent on Hans in a separate place. At the end of the month, spend it on something you actually want.

If you slip

One packet does not mean you have failed. Work out what set it off, throw the rest away and carry on from where you were. Plenty of people who quit for good needed more than one try.

Where to get help

• National Tobacco Quitline: 1800-11-2356. It is free and available in several Indian languages.
• Your doctor or dentist. They can check your mouth for damage and tell you whether medicine for withdrawal would help.

About the replacement pouch

MAR Mouth Chill is a herbal mouth freshener with no tobacco and no nicotine. It is used the same way as Hans or Cool Lip, which is why it works well as a stand-in while you quit. It is not a medicine, though. If you want to understand what Hans was doing to you, read about Hans side effects and why it is banned, or see our guide to quitting gutka.