(HealthScout) -- When it comes to smoking, quitters always win. But as many Americans know, it often takes more than one try to kick the habit.

Now researchers have encouraging news for people who've used the only prescription drug approved to help smokers quit, only to start puffing again: You have another chance.

The drug is called bupropion and it's the only non-nicotine medication that's been approved as a stop-smoking treatment. But far from being a magic bullet, bupropion, marketed by GlaxoSmithKline in the United States as Zyban, is only an aid. The pharmaceutical company funded the study.

"We're actually unsure what the exact mechanism of bupropion is," says David Gonzalez of the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, "but what it does is reduce cravings, blunt symptoms of withdrawal and allow people to be more comfortable while they're quitting smoking."

Gonzalez studied 450 adult smokers who had been unable to quit or who had relapsed after treatment with bupropion. They were randomly picked to be re-treated with bupropion or to get a placebo.

After seven weeks, 27 percent of smokers taking bupropion were tobacco-free, compared to just 5 percent who received a placebo. At 12 weeks, 20 percent of the subjects taking bupropion were still not smoking, compared with 3 percent in the placebo group.

Gonzalez presented his findings recently at the annual meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco in Seattle.

"Even if you've used bupropion before, or possibly even another quit-smoking product, you can be re-treated successfully with bupropion," says Gonzalez. More than 30 percent of people have long-term success after their first try with the drug, he says.

"Smokers, like the rest of us, are looking for a medicine that will potentially take all the symptoms of withdrawal away and help them to go from smoking to non-smoking with no discomfort. And some patients do get discouraged because we don't have anything like that," says Gonzalez.

Dr. John Slade, chairman of the American Society for Addiction Medicine's committee on nicotine dependence, says few first attempts succeed.

"Rather than think of an unsuccessful first-time quit attempt as a failure, it's better to think of it as a first-time intervention in a disease that's often been present for decades. Most people have repeated attempts to stop smoking before they succeed," says Slade.

Slade says the findings can be a wake-up call to physicians and patients.

"It's a reminder to clinicians that people should treat tobacco dependence like the chronic disease that it is, and keep coming back to the tools that work," he says.

Smoking results in an addiction to nicotine. But it's also a behavior pattern that needs to be changed, experts say.

"Nicotine dependence is a chronically relapsing kind of disease," says Gonzales. "Quitting is akin to a sort of learning theory. You learn more about yourself each time you quit and why you keep going back to smoking."

Gonzales advises smokers to prepare a plan to quit and seek a doctor's advice. He also says enrolling in a smoking cessation program, along with taking medication, can help considerably.

For advice and information on smoking cessation, visit the American Heart Association. To learn more about bupropion, visit the National Institutes of Health.

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