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Share your quitting journey

This is why and what will happen, if you allow it.

JonesCarpeDiem
6 5 77

      (Repetition>>that's what I tend to do here)

      In it's simplest terms repetition, is doing the same thing many many many times.

      When you add a chemical (pleasure release) to repetition, your brain retains connections to the emotions experienced during those periods of pleasure.

      Our most basic animal nature seeks pleasure. Who wants to feel bad when you can feel good?   

      Societal conditioning attempts to attain a social norm (the "I don't want to feel like a weirdo" conformity?) which helps prevent violence and helps us feel like we belong to something which validates ourselves.  Who we are is the sum parts of our experiences and resulting beliefs.

         Not too long ago smoking was accepted as a social norm, remember?

      Between using nicotine and making it part of our routine, the mental connections to the emotions experienced while we were having a cigarette is what we will learn to leave behind when we quit smoking.

       It takes considerable time to disconnect from all the old connections, but,  It doesn't have to be a fight if you understand what is going on "in the background." This is why simple phrases like "I don't do that anymore" bring you in the present and refocus you.

         Unlearning smoking by making new memories without smoking and letting those memories replace the old ones will disconnect you from smoking FOREVER.

Time Is The Healer. The Only Way Out Is Through.

5 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.