quitting is a unique thing.
we can psych you into the mindset of quitting and we are proof you can do it but maybe you have to say goodbye to it like we would a friend who passed away.
I got a sitemail from someone this morning with a quit of over a year who now has the idea they have to have a smoke whenever they complete a task. They desparately want to stay quit but they are fixating on those ideas even though there is no nicotine in their system.
So what is driving these thoughts?
Does their spouse smoke? Do they think they "deserve" to smoke because their spouse smokes?
Does their spouse reek of smoke when they kiss? Does that make them just say, "well, what's the point"?
The point is, we all have memories of smoking. They will never leave. Just like when I was pushing my younger brother in the stroller while eating ice cream out of a glass bowl and it fell and hit the sidewalk and cut my foot 55 years ago. Our brains are memory banks and even though we only use a small portion of them, they store all this crap like a supercomputer and it's hard to overwrite them.
So how do we "let it go"?
I suggest making a list of all the things you enjoy about not being a smoker and keeping it handy for when you remember "what you think it was like" and what was so positive about it.
The truth is, there is nothing positive about it. You are remembering a connection to something else that was going on that you happened to have a smoke during the course of that emotion.
Maybe some should have a personal ceremony and bury it like you would a friend.
Whatever it takes, you should do because if that smoking spouse suffers and dies from smoking, someone's going to need to be there to pick up the pieces.
