Reciprocity

NOPE!

Way to go MD! 4 months quit is impressive. Reward yourself with something nice then carry on. Before you know it, you'll be at a half year :)

^^^ And you can now do that better not having to stop for a smoke every 30 minutes or so :)

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Well done on getting into day 4 :) There are several parts to your post that I want to give you my thoughts on. First, and maybe most importantly, you talked about how great you were feeling when you went of a hike with your friend. This is important because you are already noticing benefits to quitting this horrible addiction. Attitude can make a big difference in being successful with your quit. Try as much as you can to focus on the positive things rather then the difficult temporary symptoms. The fact that you are fine with cravings sometimes and struggling with them at other times is normal for the early stage quit. It's a real roller coaster for a while but that WILL even out with time. Things are a little different for everyone in terms of timing but I can promise you that things WILL get better and easier to manage as time goes by. The 6 minute rule for a craving will not necessarily be the case always for you. Some are very short lived and other days, I can remember the whole day seemed like one big crave to smoke. Those are the days you really need to focus on maintaining your quit. As bad as things may seem on any given day, that won't last so just distract yourself any way you can during those times. You also spoke about some challenges in your live and if those are connected to the way you are feeling about your quit. Not really but you are thinking they are because you still believe smoking will help when you are feeling anxious about something. This is dangerous thinking because that nicodemon inside your head is trying to make excuses for you to feel it's OK to smoke again. DON'T listen to that junkie thinking!! Good stuff and bad stuff is going to happen in your life whether you smoke or not. That's just life. All you are doing when you smoke is you feed the nicotine addiction. That's all smoking is. The constant feeding of the addiction. You don't do that any more and yes, that makes you feel anxious and will do until you put in enough time in your quit where your brain has rewired itself to allow you to live day to day life as a non-smoker and not feel like you are missing something. This is the part of quitting that takes a long time and you just have to put in that time in order to free yourself - we all do. You will be fine Shanakor providing you adhere to the one simple rule of quitting - just NOPE every day no matter what :) Another thing you might want to do is make a list of the reasons you wanted to quit in the first place and keep that list handy so you can take it out when you are feeling weak or anxious. You had reasons that were important enough that you were compelled to quit in the first place. Reminding yourself of those reasons often can help keep you on track. You can make a post in the "Prerespond to Your Own SOS" thread. It's in the SOS Board Section at the top of the main page. The benefit of that is that if you ever feel you just can't carry on, read your own post about why you quit in the first place. It may just help to save your quit.

Never on Sunday NOPE!

3 Yes we do stand to pee ..........

^^^ Oh My .... Franks Zappa? Wow! Remember him from my "younger days" :P

Finally, you chicks are admitting that we sticks are far superior at this numbers game :tease:

GOOD JOB STICKS!! OO

10

ate

I never had a turkey meatball that looked like that!! I gained 5 lbs just looking at that pic :o ASPARAGUS

sex :wacko:

5

That's the way to look at it in these early days Shanakor - 1 day, 1 hour or even 1 minute at a time to manage your cravings to smoke. Don't think about what will be happening or how you will be feeling a week or a month from now. That will take care of itself and you, like everyone else, will be feeling a lot better down the road providing you don't smoke. You have already developed a useful tool for yourself to manage those cravings (your timer) and that's a good thing. Plus, you are coming here for support and information - also a good thing. The early part of quitting can be a real roller coaster because you are up one day and down the next sometimes. That will smooth out the longer you stay quit. That inability to focus or concentrate is also very normal in the early quit. Some call it "brain fog". That too will clear for you at some point. That anxious feeling you probably have will also go away in time as your brain rewires itself to life as a non-smoker. As you're finding out, there's no magic pill to just avoid all the unpleasant symptoms of quitting smoking. You have to just go through all these things to get out the other side and be truly free of this horrible addiction. So you just hang in there Shanakor and do the hard work that's required to get this thing done! We're routing for ya :)

You're doing great Jack :) As Pedro said, the hardest part is done now. You are by no means done with your journey to complete freedom but things should be starting to get easier for you to manage. Rewiring your brain to react to everyday life as a non-smoker takes a long time but that process WILL happen gradually and as it does your urges to smoke and even thoughts of smoking will become fewer and fewer. Look at me. I'm only just over 7 months quit which may seem like a long time but it isn't really. I was exactly where you are at a few short months ago and I can tell you for sure, if you hang in there and refuse to smoke, you too will be easily able to just ignore this addiction one day soon as well. I hope you are also starting to notice some nice benefits of being a non-smoker now. What's the part you like best so far?

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Glad to hear. I am horrible at diet issues, not to mention any regular exercise discipline so you have my complete admiration :)

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