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Give and get support around quitting

jtheo
Member

HELP!!

I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin.  Like I'm on day 3 instead of day 63.  Constant nagging to just have one...one puff....one smoke....one pack!.  I'm fighting hard.  Reading here, blogging, answering and commenting.  I've eaten so many cinnamon discs I think I'm burning a hole in my stomach!.  I'm distracting, sleeping, drinking water.  But the voice just keeps at me.  Seems like it's been all week and it's not letting up.  I yell..."I DON'T DO THAT ANYMORE", I calmly say "Smoking is not an option", I use my mala beads and repeat over and over "I am a successful non-smoker". But I feel like I'm loosing my grip. For the first time since I started my journey I don't feel like I can make it.  Negativity has crept into my head and I'm having the hardest time shaking it.  To this point I've been positive and happy in my journey what's changed?  My life is going along as usual.  Nothing upsetting or out of the ordinary.  HELP!!!

Tags (1)
28 Replies

Ahhh. Good ole No Mans Land (NML).  Dale JonesCarpeDiem‌ explains it very well in the link below. (Hope you don’t mind Dale) This is perfectly normal. Take a deep breathe and let the cravings roll off your shoulders. This quitting thing is quite the roller coaster.

https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/groups/best-of-ex/blog/2011/05/24/no-mans-land-days-30-to130-appr... 

jtheo
Member

Thank you.

YoungAtHeart
Member

RIGHT on schedule:  https://excommunity.becomeanex.org/groups/best-of-ex/blog/2011/05/24/no-mans-land-days-30-to130-appr...!

We all experienced a taste of No Mans Land (NML) in our journeys.  It DOES end.  Don't allow those thoughts to rattle around in your head.  Get BUSY:  Get active!  Go for a walk, march in place, do a few jumping jacks, play a computer game.  Pull out all the tools you found helpful early in your quit and use them.  This is more than a mind game - it's the struggle for dominance ---- and you CAN win.

GREAT job coming here and asking for help!

It will end - I promise!  Just hang in there!

Nancy

jtheo
Member

Appreciate it.

Just like a temper tantrum - don't give these thoughts either good or bad attention. Change your focus to something - anything else.

/blogs/Thomas3.20.2010-blog/2015/08/28/parenting-your-nicodemon?sr=search&searchId=153ad91d-b8b0-47b...

jtheo
Member

Thanks Thomas!! Hadn't read that one yet!!

Giulia
Member

This is part of the journey, I'm afraid to say.  We simply have days like this where the cravings make us go out of minds and we wonder why the heck we quit.  Get out of the house, go for a walk.  If you can exercise, do!  Get physical - you're too much in your mind.  Can you get out in nature?  If so - go.  Have a cell phone?  Take pictures with it.  Close ups of things, it will help you to focus on something else.  Our minds are just lenses and we can focus them.

If you can't do those things, then figure out WHY you're negative at the moment.  You want a  cigarette.  So?  You chose to quit.  You chose not to have a cigarette.  Has that choice suddenly faded just because you're craving?  If it's just the addiction screaming, then return to remembering WHY you chose to quit.  And cling to the fact that this horrible feeling you're experiencing will NOT last forever.  

The three month period was always my toughest time.  There's something about three months.  I don't know what, but I've seen others go through similar rough times at that point and you're heading into it.  This is the time you have to hang on the hardest.  THIS is the time you have to really dig in.  This is point where it's make or break.  This is the time you need to go through to get to the other side of this addiction.

This is also the time where you can discover acceptance of the journey.  Where you give up the fight (not the quit).  Accept that it's rough.  Delve into rough.  Embrace rough.  Cry if you need to.  And then let it go.  Release the thought of smoking.  You don't need to smoke.  It's just your addict mind playing mean.  Laugh at the bully.  They don't know how to react when you laugh at them.  

Growth is hard.  But this is part of YOU, changing.  For the better  Embrace it!  

jtheo
Member

It does help to know others have been there. Thanks for the guidance!

AnnetteMM
Member

If fighting isn't working, quit fighting.  Let yourself imagine getting in the car, driving to the store, going up to the counter, buying a pack, opening it, slapping one out, putting it in your mouth, oops forgot to get a lighter, go back in the store, buy a lighter, go outside, put the cigarette back in your mouth, light it, drag in the smoke, cough and spit and feel like sh$t.   See if that feels better.  Does it?  Is that what you really want?