Great work Emilie…6 month milestone! So happy for you 
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Excellent work! Huge congrats Emilie! Never going back x
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Day 1111 off the cigs! I still get the occasional craving but it soon passes. It’s worth it guys, stick with it
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Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes! Seven yes’ for your statements! So proud of you. I see your determination and that’s what it takes. One of these days you’ll look back and say what in the world ( Hell ) was I doing smokkkking???
You have to step away from them to be able to look back at the huge addiction and absurdity of it all. You’re on your way.
This is for you too @TrustyBird … big congrats and congrats for feeling very committed and getting comfortable with you the non smoker.
All of you, @Lucasarillious @JazzyS So proud of you for escaping the evil clutches.
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Im saving $0.56 per hour of not smoking! Im money motivated. This factoid should help me get thru the day
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Thank you so much for the encouragement Alisa - A huge congrats to you as well for shedding this nasty habit! I know i’m in good company here -We are all working towards a healthy addiction free life 
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Checking in with 61hrs. Man i love the timer because it gives me comfort that my struggles are adding up. This is soo mentally exhausting. There are alot of firsts in the first couple of days.
Like today…
1st drive on the interstate not vaping
1st lunch out without vapingits crazy to realize how much of my life revolved around vaping…before leaving somewhere, after a meal, when im bored, when i wake up FUCK ALL THE TIME.
I keep repeating i am a nonsmoker now. I am stronger than this addiction. It gets worse before it gets better…i feel like going thru quiting alcohol and being on this forum has given me invaluable tips and tricks.
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As of today, I have saved over 5300 dollars quitting smoking.
What a waste of time, energy, and money smoking was!
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When did the cravings ease up???
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I’m rooting for you big time here! I tried to quit vaping many months ago and I checked in on this thread but I couldn’t stick with it. Currently I have 76 days no vaping. I just threw everything out and I knew that was the only way to begin. The first month sucks really bad. Everything you described was true for me. I really did vape all the damn time. It does get easier. Get past the month and the cravings ease up. For me personally, I keep toothpicks in my car because I’m still not over vaping my face off while driving, so the toothpicks help distract me. Now I occasionally have a craving but I can get through it a lot easier. It does get easier and the obsession will go away, just like it did with Booze. Stay the course. Your doing great. I and everyone here, are in your corner!
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Hey @TwoWolves967 congrats on your 76 days!! Im holding out hope for those days when cravings arent constant! Thanks for your input and comments. This forum and that damn timer is getting me thru! 3 days and change
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The fist few days were the hardest. Its similar to drinking in regards to changing routines. Smoking has a way of becoming a part of everything we do. Everything feels like a trigger until you get some time without smoking.
The reward at the end of everything was to smoke. I still get cravings sometimes looking for my “reward”. The intensity of the cravings get less powerful. Now, its become similar to to drinking cravings. Sometimes a drink sounds good, but knowing how hard it was to actually quit helps minimize the cravings.
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Way to go Cjp! I doubled down on diet and exercise the first few days/weeks. Gave me something else to obsess about. Long, long walks with a good podcast are great too.
For some reason, hanging out in bookstores or sporting goods stores, just looking at everything not even buying, helped me (still helps me). Passes the time and you’re not just sitting there.
Keep it up!
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To all of you out there quitting cigarettes or nicotine products… in the planning stages or actually doing it… You will never regret your decision to not smoke. This post is 21 years old and still stands.
Feel empowered with each day you go! Each day is a day forward and each person’s experience is different.
No Man’s Land
From tc_guy 5/7/2002
I seldom start a post, unless it is to honor someone’s anniversary. But I feel compelled to share something that I seem to be sharing a lot of lately… and that is my thoughts on ‘No Man’s Land’. No Man’s Land is a dangerous and scary place… and it is a lonely time during a quit. I call No Man’s Land that period of time between about 1 month and 3 or 4 months into your quit, or about the time from the end of your first month until you become an Elder. This is a time when many people slip and go into a full relapse and have to start over… if they can start over, that is. I have some observations that may help some of you who are literally hanging on by your fingernails… or who may find yourself there tomorrow.
The first month is an exhausting but exhilarating experience… you are locked in nearly daily struggles and you get the satisfaction of successfully beating your addiction that day. You go to bed a WINNER each night (as Troutnut would say), and you are justifiably proud of yourself. Your friends and family are also supportive as they see you struggling each day to maintain your quit. And you are being constantly supported here, whether or not you post… just being here is good for your quit. And so, the battles are won and it actually becomes easier and the battles occur less often as you finish 30 days or so.
Around 60 days, you’re starting to have some really good days, with very few craves and some nice insights about yourself… but then again, you still have some bad days. Those bad days can really be depressing… you begin to wonder if you’re ever gonna be able to relax. Your junkie is whispering to you, telling you that ‘just one’ won’t hurt. You’ve conquered your daily triggers, but now you start tripping over the occasional ones… a death in the family, unexpectedly bad news, money problems, health problems, going on a long car ride, a trip to the bar, or whatever. You have a strong crave and you begin to doubt your ability to keep your quit.
In addition, the 3D support that you used to get is pretty much gone… non-smokers figure you should be ‘over it’ by now, smokers don’t like to hang around you much because they feel guilty and addicted (remember that feeling?), and people who have quit may not remember just how much love and support you need well into the first few months. They all think you should be ‘over it’, you think you should be ‘over it’… and the temptation is to have ‘just one’ to see if you ARE over it.
But of course you’re not over it, are you? That ‘just one’ whisper becomes much much louder and becomes ‘just one more’… and each time you give in to that whisper, the craves come harder and sooner. The one way to guarantee that your craves will never go away is to light up, to slide that old cigarette needle into your arm and shoot up. Those craves will be back and keep coming back. But if you protect your quit, your craves will eventually weaken and become even fewer and farther between.
As you get to around 100 days or so (some will be a bit longer)… you will begin to really get a healthy perspective on your addiction. You will see the huge role that smoking played in your life, you will see clearly what that addiction really cost you. And you will understand that it was a very high price to pay… the loss of your confidence, your emotions, your self-control… your SELF. All enslaved to your addiction. And you will begin to see that you can look forward to a non-smoking future without romanticizing your addiction. You see it clearly for the life-stealing evil it was… and is. You see a much different future for yourself than your past has been. And it no longer scares the crap out of you to think that you are done smoking… in fact, you embrace that thought with joy every day.
But you have to get out of No Man’s Land first. How can you help yourself? And how can those of us who have been through it help you?
First of all, you need to understand that you aren’t alone. If you haven’t already done so, make a pinky-finger promise with 2 or 3 good quit buds and exchange phone numbers with them. Promise to call them if you’re ever in trouble, and make them promise the same. These are your ‘life and death’ quit buddies… you are literally trusting each other with your lives. Then call them… often. Just to see how they are doing, and to tell them you’re doing well too. Be totally honest with them, this is life and death.
Second, understand that you’re going to have some unexpectedly bad days… but they are going to be further apart. Shrug them off, laugh your way through them, call your quit buddies… whatever it takes to get through them without smoking. Some battles will be easy, some will be hard. Come here and post, send qmail, exercise, learn to cook, take up a new hobby. Whatever it takes, keep going to bed a WINNER each night.
Third, ask some of the older qsters to keep an eye on you… to contact you to see how you’re doing. I have been asked to do that for several of you recently and I am happy to do that, as I am sure that others are too. We know that you just need to hold on a little bit longer and change your focus just a little to make that breakthrough. And then you will OWN your quit, and it will be a very comfortable thing.
Last, take a deep and honest look at your past life… your life as a smoker and compare it to what your life is like now… and what it will be like in the future. You have to develop that vision of your future, of the person that you are going to BECOME now that you have freed yourself. You have to believe in yourself. You have to love yourself enough to deny yourself your addiction.
No Man’s Land doesn’t have to be so lonely and scary and dangerous. You need some company and some courage and some faith in yourself. And when you emerge from it, you will not be the same person that entered it.
Never never never question your decision to quit! This is the most loving thing that you will ever do for yourself. A few days of discomfort in exchange for a lifetime of freedom. You will never find another deal like it.
Protect your quit. Don’t smoke, no matter what.
peace, Ron
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John S
(Excerpts from an old Harvard Mental Health Letter) dated July 2011
Addiction exerts a long and powerful influence on the brain that manifests in three distinct ways: craving for the object of addiction, loss of control over its use, and continuing involvement with it despite adverse consequences.
In the 1930s, when researchers first began to investigate what caused addictive behavior, they believed that people who developed addictions were somehow morally flawed or lacking in willpower. Today we recognize addiction as a chronic disease that changes both brain structure and function. Addiction hijacks the brain.
From Liking to Wanting
Nobody starts out intending to develop an addiction, but many people get caught in its snare. Genetic vulnerability contributes to the risk of developing an addiction. Twin and adoption studies show that about 40% to 60% of susceptibility to addiction is hereditary. But behavior plays a key role, especially when it comes to reinforcing a habit.
Pleasure Principle
The brain registers all pleasures in the same way, whether they originate with a psychoactive drug, a monetary reward, a sexual encounter, or a satisfying meal. In the brain, pleasure has a distinct signature: the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, a cluster of nerve cells lying underneath the cerebral cortex. Dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens is so consistently tied with pleasure that neuroscientists refer to the region as the brain’s pleasure center. All drugs of abuse, like Nicotine, cause a particularly powerful surge of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. The likelihood that the use of Nicotine will lead to addiction is directly linked to the speed with which it promotes dopamine release, the intensity of that release, and the reliability of that release. Smoking, as opposed to swallowing a pill, for example, generally produces a faster, stronger dopamine signal and is more likely to lead to drug misuse.
Learning Process
Scientists once believed that the experience of pleasure alone was enough to prompt people to continue seeking an addictive substance. But newer research suggests that the situation is more complicated. Dopamine not only contributes to the pleasure experience, but also plays a role in learning and memory — two key elements in the transition from liking something to becoming addicted to it.
Dopamine interacts with another neurotransmitter, glutamate, to take over the brain’s system of reward-related learning. This system has an important role in sustaining life because it links activities needed for human survival (such as eating and sex) with pleasure and reward. The reward circuit in the brain includes areas involved with motivation and memory as well as with pleasure. Addictive substances stimulate the same circuit — and then overload it. Repeated exposure to an addictive substance (Nicotine) causes nerve cells in the nucleus accumbens and the prefrontal cortex (the area of the brain involved in planning and executing tasks) to communicate in a way that couples “liking” something with wanting it, in turn driving us to go after it. That is, this process motivates us to take action to seek out the pleasure source.
Tolerance and Compulsion
Addictive drugs, like Nicotine, provide a shortcut, flooding the brain with dopamine and other neurotransmitters. Our brains do not have an easy way to withstand the onslaught. Nicotine can release two to 10 times the amount of dopamine that natural rewards do, and they do it more quickly and reliably. In a person who becomes addicted, brain receptors become overwhelmed. The brain responds by producing less dopamine or eliminating dopamine receptors — an adaptation similar to turning the volume down on a loudspeaker when noise becomes too loud. As a result, dopamine has less impact on the brain’s reward center. People who develop an addiction typically find that, in time, the desired substance no longer gives them as much pleasure. They have to take more of it to obtain the same “high” because their brains have adapted — an effect known as tolerance.
At this point, compulsion takes over. The pleasure associated with an addictive drug subsides — and yet the memory of the desired effect and the need to recreate it (the wanting) persists. The learning process comes into play. The hippocampus and the amygdala store information about environmental cues associated with, so that it can be located again. These memories help create a conditioned response — intense craving. Cravings contribute not only to addiction, but to relapse. A person addicted to Nicotine may be in danger of relapse when he sees someone smoking. Total abstinence is the ONLY way to stay quit.
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Today marks a year free of smoke for me!
If you are reading this, and you are either struggling with your first days or thinking about quitting, do not give up.
Gets easier and my only regret is all the chocolate I ate when cravings hit!
Health and pocket are very happy!
Smoke free is the way!
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A full year of kicking the butts in the butt Teresa!!! Awesome work! Huge congrats!
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