I just realized I have a crave trigger I didn’t know about before. Wondering if anyone else has this?
My last 3 periods of what I would consider fairly intense physical cravings, all occurred at the same time I was experiencing chest clearing/productive coughing. Luckily, this doesn’t happen often like it did early in my quit when my chest was really congested. It’s almost as if my lungs feel so good and clear after a nice productive cough, that I feel like I need to fill them back up with something, and the clean air just doesn’t seem like enough. I will clear my throat, then cough, then breathe deeply into my cleared lungs. Then I have almost a gag reflex of swallowing multiple times somehow trying to refill what feels like a huge vacuum in my chest. And my mind keeps trying to trick me into believing that only cigarette smoke will fill that void I’m feeling.
Forgot to say, I told an ex-smoker friend about this who said he experienced the same thing. He said he went back to his vape with very low (or no) nicotine juice from time to time to fill that "void". I'm thinking that might have helped in the first few weeks of my quit. But I'm over 5 months now. I don't think that would be a good idea at all!