A friend asked me why I changed my quit date. My first quit was Oct 17th. I had my last smoke the evening before. Then on Oct 30th I had a 5 hr period where I smoked. Due to an issue arising during prep for my husbands ablation, he was woken up before his procedure and sent to see his urologist and the urologist sent him home after some testing. After my second smoke during the first part of my trip home I knew it was a slip, I knew if not by the end of the trip at least by the next day I would be smoke free again. I did chose to keep smoking until the end of the trip, but even going out afterwards to run to the store I knew I would not be smoking again. I knew that those few hours were a slip.
My reasoning for changing the quit date is a personal choice and I would not hold it against others who would have just kept their original quit date after a slip. I could have easily kept my original quit date of Oct 17th, but I also knew I promised myself that even one puff would mean resetting my quit date and I will hold myself to that no matter what. Had I continued smoking past the 48 hour mark I would classify that as a relapse. So 24-48 hrs is my window going from slip to relapse and I know that varies for everyone too.
10/31/17 is my quit date even though I know I broke the nicotine addiction a few weeks before. I am grateful I had no adverse withdraws again, telling me it was the habit vs addiction, but it was still me taking a puff and that is all it will take for me to reset my quit date even if it is years in future.
