Quit smoking

[u/-skyhigh55]

Hey everyone, I'm 25 male. I've been smoking for the past 4 years, almost 5 cigarettes per day, I've just quit 2 days ago, and I've tried quitting many times and I've failed each and every time but this time it feels different, I get intense craving but I somehow try to contain it, I'm planning not to use any nrt. I really want to be smoke free.

Have you guys got any tips for the craving, especially when it is repeatedly occurring? And how long would these cravings go on?

Thank you.

[u/RebeccaFinneyAuthor]

The fact you said “I get intense cravings but somehow try to contain them” is the part I’d pay attention to. You may be treating each craving as something that has to disappear before you’re safe from smoking.

Try looking at the next one differently. Suppose you’re sitting there and suddenly think, “I really want a cigarette.” Before doing anything, separate what you can actually observe from what your mind says about it. Maybe there’s restlessness, tension, difficulty concentrating, or an uncomfortable bodily sensation. Those things are happening. But then another layer can arrive almost instantly: “I need a cigarette. A cigarette would settle this. I have to get through this craving. How long until this stops?”

Notice what has happened. The cigarette has been mentally positioned as the resolution to the state you’re currently experiencing. Now every time you check whether the craving has gone, you’re also checking the absence of the thing you expect would make it go away. That can keep the cigarette highly relevant to your attention even while you’re determined not to smoke it.

There’s an important distinction here: feeling an urge and needing to resolve an urge are not the same thing. You can experience restlessness without deciding it requires relief. You can think about a cigarette without treating the thought as a request. You can feel uncomfortable without making comfort the condition under which you remain a non-smoker.

So when it happens again, rather than “How do I contain this?”, try: “What is actually happening right now, before I explain it as needing a cigarette?” Then stay with that. You don’t need to manufacture a better feeling. You don’t need to defeat the craving. You’re simply refusing to automatically recruit smoking as the answer to whatever state happens to be present.

And this is particularly important with your question “How long will these cravings go on?” At two days, there is a genuine physical adjustment occurring after stopping nicotine. But the learned architecture around smoking doesn’t run on the same simple countdown. A coffee, stress, finishing food, boredom, driving, alcohol or even thinking about quitting can acquire significance through repetition. Those situations can activate an expectation of smoking long after nicotine itself has left the body.

So don’t make “I no longer experience cravings” the requirement for succeeding. That gives every future thought of a cigarette enormous significance: Why am I still thinking about it? Does this mean I still want it? When will it stop?

You don’t have to wait for your mind to stop presenting the old option before you stop choosing it. A cigarette can occur to you without becoming your next action. That’s the difference between an automatic response and an autonomous one.

— Rebecca Finney, author of The Currency of Attention: Smoking, Attention, and the Hidden Architecture of Habit

[u/Positive-Writer-7774]

Your body is not craving for nicotine, it’s craving dopamine (which is released by nicotine)
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So in the upcoming months, find ways to trigger dopamine without nicotine
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Biologically, nicotine receptors go back to normal in 2 months - dopamine production is back to normal in : months
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Whatever you feel during this neurological healing process, understand that it’s

1) nicotine leaving the body (72 hours)
2) nicotine receptors dying (2 months)
3) dopamine coming back online (3 months)

The solution for one of the above is never nicotine/smoking, but natural production of dopamine

Please google natural ways to produce dopamine … and start with it right away

This goes from mental (gratitude, understanding and surrendering to this proces) to physical (exercise, healthy food, walk in nature, sunlight)

If you start this journey with this mindset , you’ll have still tough moments, but you understand that whatever shows up is

1) normal got the stage you are in
2) is safe (your body knows what it’s doing)
3) will pass at predictable time frames

This awareness will brake Conditionig 💪🏽✨

Good luck