Day Two relapse

[Lyn4Life]

I busted this morning & had only one cigarette. It made me feel sooo dizzy!! Confirmed just how powerful this stuff is that i am putting into body!

I felt rotten for having one. I dont want this to happen again. I have not had one since...I don't want to...I want success this time.

The weather is lousy today. Cold windy rainy and will be tomorrow too. So I've cozied myself up in my unit for a couple of days and pampering myself. Burning in my little vapouriser, pure lavender oil. Doing 'dry skin brushing' and drinking fresh ginger teas, lots of water...all helps to detox & get rid of nicotine. Also using my circulation booster. Lots of gum too. I can feel the pangs of withdrawal

[Doreensfree]

Learn by this mistake... Smoking IS horrible...

Before you smoke... IF there is a next time...post a SOS first..it's saved lots of quits...

We carnt help you ...after..x

[ChRiSpY]

Make up your mind.... and don't change it

 

About a week of physical bullshit...and then it is all mental.

 

Failing sucks...don't do it anymore.

[nervousnellie]

hope you are doing well today and pray you had some sleep last night. i know for me the lack of sleep has been the worst aspect of it all. i suffer with panic disorder and lack of sleep sort of throws every thing off that i feel i have been working hard toward.

 

do you also mind if i ask what dry skin brushing? i guess i could just google it, haha! if it helps with detox, maybe i should jump on that train and try it out as well.

[Reciprocity]

I posted this up in another thread as well but thought I would say it again here:

 

The number of people who relapse outweighs the number of people who don't relapse at least once I suspect. A few critical things to realize though:

1. Relapse isn't accidental. It's a choice you and only you make.

2. Understanding how crappy relapsing made you feel after the fact compared to how much you thought you needed that "just one" before the fact is critical! Keep that understanding fresh in your mind as you move forward so you can draw on it next time.

3. Having a better plan for your next quit. Think about what went wrong the last time. Know what was missing in that last quit and make sure you plan to have that missing ingredient in your pantry on your next quit.

4. Quit again as soon as you have pondered numbers 1,2 & 3!

 

Never quit trying to quit. Read the posts on this or any other quit smoking board and you will see tons of people who now have multi-year quits going. Many of them too relapsed early on. Some multiple times but they learned from their mistakes, pulled themselves up and tried again until they achieved success. We can all do that. It's not something that is just reserved for "others". In the end, it's up to YOU!

[Devil Doll]

Back to square one. This saying helped me in my weak times, copy it and post it wherever you can. I had sticky notes all over the house.

 

"IF YOU HAVE JUST ONE CIGARETTE, YOU'LL BE BACK WHERE YOU STARTED. WHERE YOU STARTED WAS DESPERATELY WISHING YOU WERE WHERE YOU ARE TODAY"

[Jenny]

Sounds like you are back on your quit which is good.  It's hard, but if you stick to it I promise that it gets so much easier.  

 

Glad you are here with us.  :)   

[Jules1977]

i tend to disagree... sorry, but, if you are a heavy smoker, quit for a period of time, and have one cigarette, or even a few, then quit again, i do not agree you are back to square 1. Take my case. Quit 1 May after being on min 3 packs a day, went on holiday and smoked 6 cigarettes, and thats it, got back and got on the full quit again. Now i do not consider the 6 smokes in a week back to square 1. Its a set back but nothing to get worked up over. I am not proud of it and in NO WAY am i saying one or two is OK. I guess I am lucky as i had the determination to get back on the quit and not fully relapse

[Doreensfree]

Jules...

I know for sure..if I smoked one..bad ...if I had smoked 6..I would have woken the monster...

I've lost countless of quits this way...

Although I convinced myself I had control of it..I was only fooling myself...

Before long I was back up to a pack a day...this is how my addiction lasted 52 years...

It's better not to try it ..to find out...

My take on this..if you smoke one...your still a smoker...

If you smoke none ..your a non smoker...

I'm so glad you jumped back on the train...3 pkt,s a day..wow..

[Reciprocity]

i tend to disagree... sorry, but, if you are a heavy smoker, quit for a period of time, and have one cigarette, or even a few, then quit again, i do not agree you are back to square 1. Take my case. Quit 1 May after being on min 3 packs a day, went on holiday and smoked 6 cigarettes, and thats it, got back and got on the full quit again. Now i do not consider the 6 smokes in a week back to square 1. Its a set back but nothing to get worked up over. I am not proud of it and in NO WAY am i saying one or two is OK. I guess I am lucky as i had the determination to get back on the quit and not fully relapse

I understand what you're saying but as you said yourself: "I guess I am lucky as I had the determination to get back on the quit and not fully relapse." Yes. Not sure I'd call it lucky. I think your case is a very unusual case though as most people in their very early quit who have "a slip" and smoke one or even just a few puffs, will immediately imprint smoking once again in their brain as being all the good and satisfying things they thought it was when they smoked regularly therefore, they will be even more likely to pick one up at the next slightest inclination. Repeat this action over a day or two and guess what? Back to three packs a day in no time = full relapse.

 

I would bet that this scenario is by far more likely than your recent situation with the smoking of 6 on holiday. That's why we bang on here endlessly about NOPE. One puff leads to one cigarette which leads to the thousands that follow.

[Devil Doll]

It is absolutely back to square one. I smoked 3 packs a day as well. If I smoked a cigarette today then my quit date would absolutely change, because this is an addiction and I am an addict. We all are. If you went to AA and collected chips for sobriety then had just one drink, you would be back to square one, this is no different.

[Lyn4Life]

Back to square one or not...I haven't had another cigarette since the 'one' yesterday morning.

I feel I am still on my quit. I want to keep going and I am really feeling the pangs of withdrawal now

[Lyn4Life]

Sounds like you are back on your quit which is good. It's hard, but if you stick to it I promise that it gets so much easier.

 

Glad you are here with us. :)

[Devil Doll]

Back to square one or not...I haven't had another cigarette since the 'one' yesterday morning.

I feel I am still on my quit. I want to keep going and I am really feeling the pangs of withdrawal now

You have got it this time.

ETA: my reply was in reference to Jules post.

[Boo]

It is absolutely back to square one. I smoked 3 packs a day as well. If I smoked a cigarette today then my quit date would absolutely change, because this is an addiction and I am an addict. We all are. If you went to AA and collected chips for sobriety then had just one drink, you would be back to square one, this is no different.

 

Inviolable Law...

 

 

The Law of Addiction

 

 

"Administration of a drug to an addict will cause reestablishment

of chemical dependence upon the addictive substance."

 

 

 

Smokers are often furious with me because they believe I caused them to go back to smoking.  Why do they think this?  Well, I have this nasty habit of making a really big deal any time a clinic participant takes one puff or maybe just a few cigarettes.  The smoker feels I am so persuasive in my arguments that he has no choice but to have a full-fledged relapse.  In his opinion, I forced him back to the lifetime dependency which will impair his health and may eventually cost him his life.  He is convinced that if I had not made such a major issue out of the incident, he would just have smoked that one time and would never have done it again.  How can I sleep each night knowing what I have done?

I sleep quite well, thank you.  For, you see, I am not responsible for these people's relapses to cigarettes.  They can take full credit for becoming smokers again.  They relapsed because they broke the one major law of nicotine addiction - they took a puff.  This is not my law.  I am not setting myself up to be judge, jury, and executioner.  The law of physiological addiction states that administration of a drug to an addict will cause reestablishment of the dependence on that substance.  I didn't write that law.  I don't execute that law.  My job is much simpler than that.  All I do is interpret the law.  This means, by taking a puff, the smoker either goes back to full-fledged smoking or goes through the withdrawal process associated with quitting.  Most don't opt for the withdrawal.

Every clinic has a number of participants who have quit in the past for one year or longer.  In fact, I had one clinic participant who had stopped for a period of 24 years before he relapsed.  He never heard that such a law existed, that even after 24 years, the ex-smoker is not totally freed from his imprisonment of addiction.  He didn't understand that the day he tossed his "last" cigarette, he was placed "on probation" for the rest of his life.  But ignorance of the law is not excusable - not the way the laws of a physiological nature are written.  By the American standards of justice, this seems to be cruel and unusual punishment.  But this is the way things are.

Maybe instead of going to a smoking clinic, a recently relapsed person should contact his attorney to plead his case of why he should be able to have an occasional cigarette when he desires.  Maybe he can cheat just once, get a sympathetic jury, be judged innocent, and walk out of the courtroom a free and independent person.  Surely, in pleading his case before twelve impartial people, he will probably have no problem convincing them that he is innocent of any wrongdoing.  And, as he happily walks out of court a free and independent person, he will probably have an uncontrollable urge and then light a cigarette.

Don't look for loopholes in the law of addiction.  You will be convicting yourself back to smoking.  While it may seem harsh and unfair, to many, smoking is a crime punishable by death.  Don't try to cheat the system - NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF!

Joel

[nervousnellie]

^^ thank you, boo. i needed to read that.

 

to the original poster:  how are you doing now?

[Reciprocity]

Let me just interject a little something here to for you new quitters. Think of the "pangs of withdrawal" as cutting your new teeth of freedom. That is to say, it may be unpleasant for the first little while but you are doing two wonderful things in the midst of all this misery you're feeling:

 

1. You are riding your body of not only nicotine but a lot of other toxins that you have ingested over a long period of time. It's no wonder your body is doing weird things temporarily.

2. Your are having to retrain your brain to function without cigarettes as part of your daily routine. You're currently on autopilot when it comes to lighting up. Stress at work or at home; light one up. Happy event, light one up. Time to relax, light one up. Sad thing happens, light one up. Meal finished, light one up and on, and on it goes. You now have to figure out how to mentally function day to day so you are not addressing all these things and more by pulling out a smoke and lighting it up. That's a lot of reprogramming going on there. No wonder you're jittery and anxious. It's hard work and takes a while to sort it all out and be comfortable with it all.

 

Try and embrace the fact that you have started down the road a whole new way of functioning. This is the road to freedom that you want so badly. This is what needs to be done to get there and you are finally doing it! Don't fear it so much. Don't dwell on how horrible you feel. You're changing your life for the better and that's a good thing, a happy thing. These feelings of misery won't last that long. Live through them while they're with you because soon you will be in a new healthier world and you'll wonder what the hell all the fuss was about and my God, how could I have smoked like that for so long.

 

It's not that far off if you just quit and stay quit. No puffs, no cigarettes; just quit!

[Lyn4Life]

Thank you. Reading it did help.

It is officially day two for me.

Yes my body and mind has been thrown into temporary dissaray. Detoxing & getting rid of nicotine from my system, cold turkey after over 40 years of smoking. It's huge for me & in these first five days, I can't help but have it all totally consume me. I am telling myself that the way I feel is only temporary & present feelings will pass. But for now, I am being gentle on myself, continuing detoxing, resting & staying away from stressful situations until I feel stronger. I also suffer from panic attacks from time to time.

My thoughts are scattered, concentration level is low. Feeling cranky...it will all pass & I will not have another smoke

[Lyn4Life]

I think I am in a completely different location of the world than most people on here.

When I have woken up, everyone else is heading to bed :)

[Reciprocity]

Thank you. Reading it did help.

It is officially day two for me.

Yes my body and mind has been thrown into temporary dissaray. Detoxing & getting rid of nicotine from my system, cold turkey after over 40 years of smoking. It's huge for me & in these first five days, I can't help but have it all totally consume me. I am telling myself that the way I feel is only temporary & present feelings will pass. But for now, I am being gentle on myself, continuing detoxing, resting & staying away from stressful situations until I feel stronger. I also suffer from panic attacks from time to time.

My thoughts are scattered, concentration level is low. Feeling cranky...it will all pass & I will not have another smoke

I know you will find it difficult to believe what I am telling you now but I assure you, what you are describing is exactly where I was at a little over 4 short months ago. Foggy head, unable to function properly or focus on anything but the misery I was enduring day after day. Yet I continued on and refused to smoke when there was a voice in my head screaming out for relief from what I was feeling at that time. NOPE!! Not giving in. That's all it took. Gradually, it did get better. Almost unnoticed was the progression it happens so slowly but it did happen. Now - smoking??? Pffft!! Really?

[Lyn4Life]

Is Diarrhea a symptom of nicotine withdrawal ??

[Doreensfree]

I think I am in a completely different location of the world than most people on here.

When I have woken up, everyone else is heading to bed :)

Where is your corner of the world.?????

I am 5 hours ahead of most of the peeps here...

[Doreensfree]

Our bodies are thrown in medlum...it take a few days to settle down..

Everyone is different ,and our bodies behave different..

I think my problem was the reverse...

If you are concerned ..a trip to the doc might help..

[Lyn4Life]

Yes, I will ask my doctor next week.

I think it probably is a symptom of the big changes going on in my body.

My 'corner of the world' is Queensland, Australia

[Doreensfree]

Yes I'm UK.so complete opposites ..my daughter lives in Canberra..so she calls us just about her bedtime

Sometimes I can hear she is tired..but I'm rearing to go..its morning..