Sunnyside

Happy birthday

Major achievement!!! Well done to you.

Good for you!! First test won and a big one too! The "no one would know", "one won't hurt". Well done!!

Happy Chinese new year to you too. My daughter came home from school and went through it with me today, she is a bit of an expert lol!!

Brilliant news I can do this. I hope you enjoyed your icecream too!

I'm with Bakon, how many did you smoke? Tew I think you maybe being a tad hard on yourself.

I'm so sorry Evelyn. Sending you the biggest virtually hug I can (((((hugs)))))

I'm so sorry Evelyn. Sending you the biggest virtually hug I can (((((hugs)))))

I wrote this on another forum. If you can understand this you will stop missing a cigarette. I think we all remember our first cigarette. I remember mine as if it was yesterday. Sitting in an alley way, just over the road from my school, at lunchtime with a group of friends. I was curious to what smoking was all about. I knew that is wasn't healthy for you, but I was only going to try it. Not smoke for years. The fact that it tasted disgusting, it made me feel nauseous and dizzy, didn't matter because I thought I was cool for doing it. So I carried on and after awhile it got easier to smoke. I had stopped coughing and started to enjoy it. So as time goes on, bit by bit one cigarette every so often turns to ten a week, then as time progresses I was smoking a Pack of twenty a day! I couldn't tell you how long that process took to get me to a pack a day. But it did. Being the amazing machine it is, my brain had to adapt to this foreign poison I was forcing into myself. Nicotine was releasing a flood of dopamine into my system by mimicking the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. My system became off balance. My brain needed to regulate the amount of dopamine being released, but it couldn't regulate nicotine, as it was a foreign substance (poison). So it had no other choice. My brain started turning down it's own sensitivity to acetylcholine ( What is Acetylcholine? Click here ) Nicotine was literally desensitizing me and impacting my mood. To work for itself. The more I smoked. The more my brain turned down it's sensitivity to acetylcholine, creating a cycle that would start to make me rely more and more on the cigarette just to feel "normal". My brain also started rewiring itself to try and integrate nicotine as part of it's normal function. Nicotine also created another problem for me. As the effects of dopamine wore off. I was left with a "fight or flight feeling." Read more about the fight and flight response here. As I increased my nicotine level. My anxieties started to become more severe as the effects of nicotine wore off. Yet, my subconscious started to figure out something that I wasn't fully aware of. If I smoked a cigarette, that anxiety would go away. This was the start of what would become known to me as the AAaaahhhhhh sensation. Romancing a cigarette, remembering the good times, the memories of the few I enjoyed BUT forgetting the thousands of others. For a fair few years I lived this illusion. As much as I really didn't like to smoke in my later years. I always thought that it must have done something for me. Yet the more I smoked, the more I didn't feel anything anymore. Nothing. I was now smoking just so I could feel "normal". I was smoking just to keep the anxieties of not smoking at bay. There was no pleasure there and I didn't even realize it. I was stuck in the cycle of addiction. So even when I tried to quit smoking, my subconscious still remembered smoking. It still remembered that if I felt anxiety, for what ever reason caused it. A cigarette would relieve it. So even when I quit smoking and adjusted to having no nicotine in my system. I still had those AAaaahhhh memories. Everytime, I would fail and smoke that first cigarette, expecting that AAAaahhhhh feeling to come to me, that feeling of satisfaction. Yet it wasn't there!! I usually felt like I did the very first time I smoked a cigarette. Dizzy, nauseous, shaky, heart beating too fast and confused. Confused that the cigarette didn't bring me relief like I anticipated it would. The problem was, that unlike the million memories my mind created during my smoking career. The memories that told to me to expect relief and satisfaction whenever I smoked a cigarette. Now that I didn't smoke, I didn't NEED nicotine anymore. There was nothing missing. There was nothing that needed replenishing. So there was nothing there to relieve. What I didn't understand at the time is that though the AAaahhhh feeling is real. It is WHY it is real that is the illusion. Yet, after that first cigarette. I would still look for that AAAaaahhh feeling in the next cigarette and the next. Again, my brain being the amazing machine that it is would say " Oh, I remember this program and luckily I still have all the rewiring in the hard drive." So as I smoked that 2nd cigarette and that 3rd cigarette and so on. My brain, once again started to turn down it's own sensitivity to naturally release dopamine. Once again desensitizing me and impacting my mood. All the extra acetylcholine receptors initially made were still there. Just like a power plant that was shut down and gone out of business. Once again through my brain, it started to open the gates and the power plant would be back up and running. As if it had never closed. As I increased my nicotine level. The anxiety after effect as the nicotine wore off became more and more intense. This only reinforced my subconscious into saying, " If you feel anxieties, smoke a cigarette and they will go away." Soon enough the AAaaahhhh sensation was there. Not because cigarettes did something FOR me, but because they did something TO me. I was once again needing to maintain my nicotine levels just so I could feel so called " normal". I had to smoke again and again just to keep the anxieties from not smoking at bay. I had once again built an artificial sense of normalcy. I was once again in the very place that I didn't want to be..... in the grip of addiction. If AAaaahhh memories are calling your name. Remember this. "The cigarette never changes. Only your memory of them does. "

Congratulations Doorbell or is it Doorknob or even Horney toad? I thought you might find this funny anyway.

This info may help you guy's: When you experience something pleasurable, certain areas of your brain called reward centers activate by releasing dopamine. The presence of dopamine is what causes the pleasurable feeling, the enjoyment, the “ahhh”. Smoking causes an increase in the dopamine levels. The actual mechanism is debated, but MRI studies confirm the increase occurs. As you continue to smoke, the dopamine levels remain high and the brain starts shutting down some of the reward centers in an attempt to return to normal. This causes the smoker to require more, which raises the dopamine levels, which causes the brain to shut down even more reward centers. A balance is eventually reached, typically at the point of a pack per day (about 20 mg of nicotine). This also applies to users of chewing tobacco and snuff. So now a balance has been reached. The nicotine has raised dopamine levels and the brain has shut down reward centers to compensate. Heroin and cocaine users also reach this maintenance level where the fix no longer causes pleasure, but simply maintains “normal”. When the dopamine level begins to drop (30 – 60 minutes after the last smoke) the smoker begins to feel “the need” and has another fix which re-establishes the dopamine levels. When the smoker quits the levels of nicotine fall rapidly, as do the dopamine levels. After three to five days the nicotine is out of the system. The brain, however, does not recover as quickly. Without the constant smoking stimulus, dopamine levels are far below where they were. Since reward centers were long ago shut down to compensate for the increased dopamine levels caused by smoking, the (now) ex-smoker is operating at a “reward deficit”. As a result, the ex-smoker feels depressed, ill-tempered, and sad (cries a lot). Those who use sleep as an escape mechanism will tend to sleep much more. Another effect of this “reward deficit” is that ordinary, everyday rewards don’t seem to work anymore. In reality, they do cause an increase in dopamine levels, but with so many reward centers deactivated the increase is barely noticeable, if it can be noticed at all. This is why we quitters need to reward ourselves often. The size of the reward isn’t important, the quantity is. Essentially, we need to exercise our reward centers to rebuild them, just like muscles need to be exercised after a long period of disuse. The research I’ve dug into indicates it takes “several months” to “over a year” , (depending on who you read) for the brain to reactivate enough reward centers to approach the “normal” of never-smokers. Perhaps this is the root of the idea that you aren’t fully quit until you’ve experienced all the seasons. So early in your quits, reward yourselves often. Little stuff is great. Window shopping, watching ducks at the park, special coffee after work, whatever. Doesn’t have to be expensive, just enjoyable. Think free weights for the brain

Well done for coping with all that Evelyn. Glad to hear that Nova is starting to improve in her health now.

I'm on meds myself, hoping to come off soon. You shouldn't just come off them!! I messed up once and had to go 4 days without any. Cold turkey like you are doing. That was a real eye opener, I certainly wouldn't want to go through that again. Go speak to your doctor, trust me you are NOT craving a cigarette! You are suffering with anxiety. They feel so alike that when I was going through my quit early on I couldn't tell the difference. Also your mood will be going haywire at the moment. You don't need to suffer like this TEW. If you need to talk, you can always pm me x

Congratulations

If you want to know how much around about you have spent in your smoking life calculator

congratulations 5 weeks is awesome

Everyone is different but if you think setting a date and sticking to it is best for you. Then go for it. One suggestion though, when you put out your last cigarette on the Monday night. Notice the time, and quit from then, that way you will already be a few hours into your quit while you have been sleeping. It seems to help mentally with some people, definitely if you find it hard in the mornings, to say, no you have been quit for say 8/9 hours already. I'm not spoiling it.

Welcome indigo, jump on the train and hold on tight, you can do this.

Good to see you are still going Tracy, driving without smoking was a hard one for me too. It was more the realization that in fact I had always smoked all my driving life, scary thought that! It's better now, as I don't have to have the window open and freeze or worry about ash flicking in my eye, or other stuff I really can't remember now. It just seems natural not to smoke.

Congratulations!!!!

Lovely post!!! Congratulations on your two year quit.

I'm using IE and im on a windows phone, which ain't good at the best of times. What I have found is if you go to CLICK THE MORE REPLY OPTIONS NOT THE POST BUTTON SEE IN THE RIGHT HAND CORNER THERE IS SOME OPTIONS, TICK THE HTML BOX IF YOU HAVE WROTE SOMETHING BEFOREHAND IT WILL LOOK LIKE THIS GO TO A PHOTO HOSTING SITE AN EASY ONE IS POSTIMAGE. THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN YOU POST IT. IF YOU PREVIEW IT, YOU WILL SEE IT AS A PICTURE. THIS IS WHAT THE FRONT PAGE OF POSTIMAGE. YOU WILL SEE BROWS PICTURE FOR ONES SAVED ON YOUR PHONE OR COMPUTER AND URL FOR ONES OF THE NET. ALSO THERE IS A RESIZE YOU WANT WEDSITE WHICH 640 OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, I DO IT WITH OUT THINKING NOW, BUT IT DOES SAY WEBSITES. IT WILL ASK IF IT IS FAMILY FREINDLY OR ADULT, JUST CLICK WHICH ONE AND UPLOAD. YOU WILL BE TAKEN TO ANOTHER PAGE WITH A SELECTION OF CODES PRESS THE HOTLINK ONE, THAT IS FOR FORUMS COPY AND THEN CLICK IN THE BOX. TO PASTE ANY CONTENT IS THE SAME JUST CLICK THE HTML BOX AND PASTE IT IN. I HOPE THIS HELPS SOME OF YOU

Tracy I have sent you a pm, but i will also say this. At the moment something will aggravate you very quickly. Sarge's ways will work for some, certainly not me, but some lol. Eating does help the cravings you are right. To feed this addiction nicotine has re-wired our brains. So instead of been hungry or thirsty we would smoke. When we stop smoking go by the H.A.L.T rule which is Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired. All of these feel like cravings when you first quit. Remember that check list, go through all of them first. Stick with it Tracey x

Very happy for you Evelyn!! The start of something new x