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Share your quitting journey

why is it so hard to quit?

JonesCarpeDiem
0 7 19

1. You're addicted to nicotine

2. Smoking has been your response to everything in life. It's all you've known for years.

 

You need to free yourself from nicotine. BUT

If you do use a patch or other nicotine aid, do not think of it as some kind of magic.

Unlearn the mental cues to smoke while you are using it.

I found it much easier to get to the point of not needing the NRT (I used the patch) by using it while unlearning the habit part.  (The memories and emotions connected to the physical act of smoking.)

I didn't try the patch. Trying it would have indicated if it didn't work I would try something else. So, if I tried everything else and none of them worked either, where would that leave me?

Your brain is where you unlearn smoking.

When you want to smoke, you need to catch yourself and say, I don't need to smoke instead of I  need to smoke.

Once you start building your new non smoking habits it becomes easier and easier because it's now become automatic to catch yourself before smoking instead of automatically smoking.

You are going to learn alot about yourself.

You may begin at anytime once you've decided you don't want to be a smoker anymore.

Only you can make that decision.

 

dale

6.33 years from my last cig

7 Comments
About the Author
Hello, My name is Dale. I was quit 18 months before joining this site and had participated on another site during that time. I learned a lot there and brought it with me. I joined this site the first week of August 2008. I didn't pressure myself to quit. HOW I QUIT I didn't count, I didn't deny myself to get started. When I considered quitting (at a friends request to influence his brother to quit), I simply told myself to wait a little longer. No denial, nothing painful. After 4 weeks I was down to 5 cigarettes from a pack a day. The strength came from proving to myself, I didn't need to smoke because I normally would have smoked. Simple yes? I bought the patch. I forgot to put one on on the 4th day. I needed it the next day but the following week I forgot two days in a row I put one in my wallet with a promise to myself that I would slap it on and wait an hour rather than smoke. It rode in my wallet my first year.There's nothing keeping any of you from doing this. It doesn't cost a dime. This is about unlearning something you've done for a long time. The nicotine isn't the hard part. Disconnecting from the psychological pull, the memories and connected emotions is. :-) Time is the healer.