Robert,

  Congratulations on having made the decision to quit smoking and nicotine.  You must already feel a tremendous difference in your life, your ability to breath, smell, and your energy level likely have all improved.  All of these are positive reinforcements that you did the right thing when you recognized what your addiction to nicotine was doing to your health and so you made up your mind to live without it.

 

  But you are troubled.  You say that after 3 months of nicotine free life, you "think about cigarettes or smoking as much as ever."  I'm sure you have heard the joke about the man who went to the doctor and said "Doctor, It hurts when I do this ..."

The doctor's reply of course is "Don't do that."  No, I am not being a wiseguy.  One of the articles Joel recommended addresses the same issue.  Just think about something else.  (I did not link that here but the link is just above in his original reply to your question.)  What many of us do not realize is that we are focusing on the idea of having one cigarette and how good it would be to smoke just one to relieve the withdrawl, the anxiety, the stress, the anger, the fear.  Just one is all I need.

 

 You probably already recongnize where I am going with this.  You can't have just one cigarette.  The key to your freedom from nicotine addiction is to avoid having one.  One is easy to avoid, but if you were ever to smoke that one, it would be the thousands that come after that would hard to keep yourself from smoking because you will need them again to prevent the withdrawl which you will go through about once an hour for the rest of your preshortened life as a result of your nicotine addiction.

 

  Change your perspective Robert.  Stop looking at giving up the smokes as a sacrifice that you made, something that you are suffering through against your will.  You made an informed choice to quit smoking because you know what the consequences are if you were to continue inhaling from that paper tube that is laden with toxic and carcinogenic chemicals and particulates.  You chose to quit.  Make a list of your reasons and when the desire to have a cigarette presents itself state them out loud to remind yourself that this is a positive experience.  After three months, you have proven that you are capable of living nicotine free, now seek to prove, as all of us have, that life is not burdensome without nicotine, it is infinitely easier, healthier, more enjoyable then when nicotine dictated to us what we could do and for how long based on our need to suck hot toxic laden smoke into our lungs again to keep from going into withdrawl.

 

  If you choose to remain nicotine free, you will soon discover that the freedom from the thoughts that you seek is not in taking that cigarette that you have conditioned your mind to believe will offer relief, but in denying yourself that short term satisfaction in favor of a lifetime of FREEDOM.

 

If you choose to never take another puff, you will never regret it.  Read as much as time affords you at www.whyquit.com and you will learn everything you need to know to about your addiction.

 

Never give up.

 

Joseph