Your question is one that I've seen pop up numerous times since I joined the forum a couple months ago, and I think it's one that needs addressing.
My short response is, when you see posts about people at their 6 month mark, for example, saying that they're thinking about cigarettes, I think it's important to know that what they're feeling is not the same as what you're feeling right now in Hell Week.
What I think is often unfair about the posts that you are referring to is that they rarely contain notes about how many great days they've had in the 6 months leading up to the moment that brought them to the forum that day. It's a bit like how the news networks never show good news. We can watch the news all day and hear about bombs and mortars in Baghdad, but we don't see news about school attendance there being up 80%. We can watch news about a string of murders in the bad part of some major American city, but we don't see the stories about the young men and women from that same part of town who are pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and beating the odds, becoming a success. As they say, "No news is good news."
So how can you move ahead with confidence that you won't suffer a lifetime of cravings? It takes a little blind faith so early in your quit, but the way forward will become more and more clear as you progress. Take a look at all the folks posting their milestones every day...most do not contain words about intolerable cravings or days that seemed unbearable. Rather, they are full of celebration for how great they're feeling without relying on cigarettes to get through life.
It's important that you see the posts about cravings, even months into a quit, for what they are...a request for support in a moment of weakness.
Another consideration is our tendency to make excuses. Our society loves to assign blame. As smokers, we got so accustomed to using cigarettes to "help" us through every little problem that came up, that we came to believe that we actually needed them. Once you stop smoking, your brain is still conditioned to think that a cigarette will fix whatever problem you're having, like some magical elixir. We find ourselves blaming every feeling we have on the fact that we just quit smoking. (As though we never ever had bad days or bad feelings while we were smokers, right!?) This will happen a lot at first, but less frequently as time goes on.
There have been a few posts at the forum lately about this very subject. Kerri has been quit for several years. Last spring she was at home depot buying mulch when she got a "craving" that made her drive home empty-handed instead of risking a relapse. This year, she went back to Home Depot for the same thing... and experienced the same "craving" as she loaded up the truck. The difference is that this year she finally recognized that it wasn't a craving at all. Her heartbeat raised a bit because she was loading 20 bags into her truck, and her brain incorrectly identified the sensation. She'll never have the problem again, because she knows how to recognize it.
In about 24 hours, I will hit my 2 month mark. I can tell you without any exaggeration that I do not experience anything that I would consider a craving. Do I ever think about smoking? Sure. Some of my best friends are smokers. When they light up, if I feel anything at all, it's usually just a sort of instinctive reaction to light up with them. This lasts for maybe one second. After that, I am able to enjoy myself without giving cigarettes a second thought. More often than not, I can walk past the smoking area at work and not feel anything that resembles a desire to be out there with them.
You said that you hoped to never think about this addiction again, but I think it's important that you never forget it. George Santayana famously said,
- "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Quitting, like most anything in life, is what you make of it. If you get your head in the game and stay focused, you will succeed, I have no doubt about that. It's very easy to have a bit of a pessimistic attitude early on in the quit, but don't focus on the posts about people wanting to smoke instead of ones from folks singing the praises of their new life.
Stay the course. It's worth it.
Jared
More from Jared:
This Too Shall Pass
