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Share your quitting journey

I was very concerned that nicotine would be calling my name forever and take me back to smoking. Furtunately, that is not how it works.

JonesCarpeDiem
Member
0 7 12
‎01-07-2015 01:36 PM

I had a very difficult time with these thoughts. I was honestly feeling I might never be free.

(Yep, near the end of no mans land)

When I learned the following, it was a POWERFUL turning point in my quit. For with this knowledge, I knew I could and would be free.

 

The pleasure receptors that have been sensitized to nicotine are replaced with ones that aren't sensitized and have thus, never known it.  This happens over the course of about a year. Same princlple as skin cells sloughing off, Our bodies cells are constantly being replaced.

Once this has changed (after a year of abstinence from nicotine), the only influence on me that is different from someone who never smoked is my memories of smoking.

This is why unlearning smoking is essential. That is done by simply making new memories without smoking until we don't think of smoking any longer.

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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.