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General : "I Choose Life!" View All Messages
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 Message 3 of 4 in Discussion 
From: Joel  in response to Message 2Sent: 12/9/2005 8:06 PM
Hello Ian:
 
There are people who reach what seems to be a state of comfort the day they quit smoking. The more a person strengthens his or her reasons for quitting and wanting to stay free, the more likely he or she is going to be able to ride out any urges he or she may initially get, and the better he or she will be at squelching the psychological triggers that may occur over time. There are some people who may not get many thoughts at all--basically just quit smoking and never looking back.
 
Here is a short article that I refer to often about how Every quit is different:

Every quit is different. Not only that, when a person quits multiple times, each one of those quits are different also. Some people quit and have a terrible time, relapse down the road and are terrified to quit again because they "know" what will happen the next time. Well, actually they don't know, the next time may be a breeze in comparison. On the alternate side, some people have an easy quit, go back with the attitude, "Oh well, if I have to, I'll just quit again." They may find the next quit horrendous, and possibly not be able to pull it off.

The reason I mention this is it is possible that you won't have any major symptoms this time. I have had a lot of four pack a day smokers who smoked 40 plus years who toss them with minimal withdrawal. The reason they never tried to quit before is they witnessed people who smoked one fourth of what they did go thorough terrible side effects and figured, "If it did that to them, it will kill me." But when the time came, their quit was easy in comparison.

You may find that this quit will be relatively easy. Stranger things have happened. But if it does, don't think this didn't mean you were addicted. The factor that really shows the addiction is not how hard or how easy it is to quit. What really shows the addiction is how universally easy it is to go back. One puff and the quit can go out the window.

Summing up, the first few days may be relatively easy, or for some, it may be very difficult. Who knows? The only thing we know is once you get past the third day nicotine free it will ease up physically. Psychological triggers will exist but more controllable measures can be taken with them, basically keeping your ammunition up for why you don't want to be a smoker.

Easy or hard, quitting is worth it. Once you have quit for even a few hours, you have invested some effort, time, and maybe even a little pain. Make this effort count for something. As long as you hang in there now, all of this will have accomplished a goal. It got you off of cigarettes. After that, to stay off, the make or break point simply translates to...Never Take Another Puff!

Joel