Hello  Breathless-

its downright shitty for a bit, we really have to learn to be non-smokers again-

its a combination of habits I think- you are in complete control- every urge gets weaker,, find something to help- I used gum-I still do, just not as much, it freshens

our breath. the opposite of a nasty cig,, every day your stronger, an soon ,,when you smell a smoker,,, its awful.. stinky,, etc- hang in there,, stay here, study everything about nicotine etc,, its pretty enlightening,,

RC

Although the nicotine is gone, the receptors in your brain are still craving that stimulation that nicotine used to provide. That will gradually die off. Also, think about when you smoked. How much of your day was consumed by smoking related thoughts and activities? Not smoking itself but all the stuff surrounding smoking. All that time you used to spend planning and thinking about smoking related stuff is no longer a factor so you need to start to develop new routines to fill all that free time productively.

You also need to learn new ways to deal with all life's situations: stress, happy times, sad times and just relaxing times. These were probably all times you relied on smoking as an emotional response to those life situations. Now that's no longer available and was never really necessary in the first place. This is the part that takes time. It's a slow process but as you go through it, your reliance on smoking as a go to for life experiences will be less and less each day from here on in until, after a while, you won't think about smoking right away when life situations arise. That's when you know you really have a handle on this addiction :)

Thank you, I can't wait for that day!

Good trick!  Do whatever works for you...just don't smoke!!!

Congratulations on 6 days!!!

You're coming up on 1 month quit tomorrow B57 :) It would be really interesting to hear what things are like for you now compared to this blog post when you were 6 days in. I see you posting in the Nope thread every day which is GREAT! Are you finally starting to see the benefits of quitting rather than just the crappy stuff?