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Share your quitting journey

The process of unlearning and disconnecting from smoking.

JonesCarpeDiem
3 8 13

I know you new quitters may think 2 years is a long time off but it truly passes quicker than you think.

  
   
    
     
      
       
        
         It really does take two sets of seasons (that's 2 years of holidays, physical season changes, emotional upheavals) to be reasonably confident you aren't going to choose to smoke again..       
It's logical if you thoughtfully consider it.      
We smoked for a long time and we have connected it to everything we do daily.     
We always knew when and planned where we could smoke and managed to be there at the right time or shortly thereafter.    
That's only part of it.   
    

Now we have to consider the emotions we've connected to smoking.
Love,

    

Stress,

    

Loss,

    

Fear.

    

Through it all, we gave nicotine the power to soothe and calm.

   
Certain combinations of prior actions trigger memories which are bound to trigger emotions because, they are tied together "up there." 
  

Your first year quit you may get through a situation fine but during the same holiday the following year you might see someone from the past that may trigger strong emotions of a sad or traumatic experience.

  

I say this so you see the "connection" process as I believe it applies to all our life experience whether we are smokers or not.

  Our memories, though out of our control, constantly shape our future actions as our experience grows..

The statistics for relapse drop drastically at two years.
Stay with it and see!

8 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.