Ok my birthday was on Wed. I decided to give my self a present and quit smoking. I ve been smoking for 45 years, since I was eleven years old.
Now I have had other addictions in my life and have managed to over come them and lead a semi decent life. But this trying to quit smoking is the toughest of all. I know Its only been two days but f@#k Im about ready to chew chunks out of the walls. Question: Can anyone else who has been threw this tell me how you coped and how long before the cravings go away or at least become less severe?
When the LeDain Commission on drugs studied treatment, the findings were that nicotine addiction was harder to break than heroin addiction. So you are in for a fight, and you're likely going to have times where the drug gets the upper hand again. But eventually your determined mind can beat the chemistry and break your chains. But you have to learn to endure until they finally rust away.
What worked for me after thirty years of smoking was not punishing myself for occasionally backsliding. When I tried earlier and took a cig, or a pack I let myself 'relapse' back into being a smoker for years because I'd failed to be a non-smoker. But when I had a reason to want to quit—find an asthmatic to fall in love with—and learned to think of it not as quitting—Horrors!—but only as waiting a little longer until the next cigarette, it got a lot easier. After all, even the most addicted smoker can manage a bus-ride or an interview where they can't smoke; they really only think about it afterwards, when they light up. All I did was be my own bus-driver/job interviewer saying, 'You can wait'.
Some people can turn that process into a scheduled tapering off, and can succeed if they work at increasing the intervals and decrease the dosages (patches and medical plans work that way). I couldn't see becoming that focussed on my next fix as helpful, and preferred just challenging myself and seeing how long I could go. Eventually, the long wait for the next smoke became a longer wait to replace an empty pack, then a longer one, then I forgot to replace it at all. The trick seemed to be forgetting the next cigarette, not focussing on it. For me, that made getting to the point where I felt I was in control, and that I had the power to stick to my intention come faster, and it came well within that year.
But given the chemistry, and all the little social and psychological connections and reward structures in those days of accepted smoking (the Ledain offices all had ashtrays) it was a good many years before I realized, "Hey, I don't remember the last time I felt like a smoke". That version of phantom limb pain from the long ago addiction lasted for a long time.
Best of luck and even better success.
PS: Worked for booze too. 'Never again', is a harsh high standard, but having a good reason to want control and permission to enjoy, but not give up the project of you being the boss instead of the drug can work. Gotta remember the boss never gives up, or stops working though.
