It's in your mind...

[nsd_user663_3633]

I was looking through some old posts on the forum, and I came across this gem by AustinLegro. It says it about as well as it's possible to say it in my opinion.

There seems to be quite a few posts popping up at the moment with members sort of screaming that they're gagging for a ciggie or even that they've had a little slip but they're back on course, phew..!

Everyone on this forum is (I assume) at some stage of a quit and is using whatever method seems to be working (or not) for them.

If you look to the "older" members of the forum you will see the success stories and therefore be able to see a method that works. The problem is that even the successful quitters all seem to have adopted their own system for cessation and applied it in a way that works for them.

The following is MY opinion. Don't flame me for it, it's working for me and if it prevents someone having a little slip today then all the better.

Well today's thought for the day is this, "Smoking is all in the head"

We're all pretty much similar as human beings so why do some of us need drugs to quit? Why can some heavy smokers quit "cold-turkey" overnight and some very casual smokers never seem to break the habit? I'd say it's because physical nicotine addiction is just pants. Cut off the supply and the body has a slight moan and then forgets about it.

The brain on the other hand goes absolutely mental and demands its fix! Your body has now gone off playing tennis with a friend, ok, it's got a slight cough and feels under the weather but generally it's cool with it and is giving the brain no support at all.

Now the brain goes into battle, and it fights for its fix like getting an eel into a jam jar. It will try anything to get you to smoke again (ever had that feeling where you HOPE there's bad news because it's an excuse to smoke.?) or even get you to the point where your family shout, "for god's sake have a cigarette, you're driving us mad!".

I think the way to have an easy quit is to have a desire to stop greater than your ability to think yourself back onto the fags.

Don't "plan" to quit. Don"t quit at the end of a packet, or a week or a year.

Stop the moment you realise the need to be a non-smoker.

Throw 19 fags away if you have to.

Laugh in the face of tobacco, drop ice cubes down the vest of nicotine.

Remember you can sleep 8 hours without a smoke. Your body works fine without it when your brain's nodded off.

Once you've passed 72 hours and there's no nicotine in your system why smoke? Your brain would hug you for sure if you did. All those nicotine receptors popping back to life but what for? Your body wouldn't appreciate it, only your brain.

We need to continually remind ourselves that we're not giving anything up, we're not depriving ourselves of anything so what on earth would a smoke do for us.?

The cravings stop when you stop them. They're in your head. If you're strong that's today.

Knowledge is power, knowledge is success.

I agree totally that quitting is mostly in our heads - sure there is some hardship to overcome in the early stages but once you know about your addiction, your quit will become much more straightforward. I can thank education for my being successful so far. It's not all been plain sailing - I've had some tough moments along the way, but armed with the knowledge that I get nothing from smoking failure is not an option and I will never go back to the slavery of my addiction.

Know your enemy, people

[nsd_user663_3728]

Hi Stuart

I remember this Gem of a post from Austyn as well, it came at just the right time for me when I had that awful time early in my quit

I was so close to slipping back into addiction that day/evening

I think it's a great shame there is no room/forum for these little Gems of posts to be kept so that they can help others along this road

I know there's a star system but that only works if you know what you're looking for, where to find it and so on the same with the search system that works just fine if you know who wrote the thread/post and a key word or 2

But a room especially for this type of post would be great and very useful not just for new members but for any of us when we need a little lift over the hump so to speak

Love

Mum xxx

[nsd_user663_4991]

Re ...its all in your mind

Hi Stuart , that was a good post that I haven't seen before . Thanx for sharing it and I can relate to it very well.

Regards Trev

Quit 28th April 2009

3 months patches

3 months 16 days CT:cool:

[nsd_user663_6165]

"Laugh in the face of tobacco, drop ice cubes down the vest of nicotine."

What a brilliant mental picture that line has conjured up! I'm going to carry it around in my head all day and drop that ice cube if I feel a crave.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention Stuart.

[austinlegro 11 Years Smoke Free]

It's a little funny seeing your own name come up in lights and does, to me, raise a serious question mentioned above..

In amongst the forum politics, the jokes, the day to day forum banter there are some real gems of information.

When i was writing for hours there were others doing the same and all that data gets older and older and sadly sometimes forgotten.

I've read some brilliant stuff on here and i like to think i've contributed wisely to the database.

I can see a time not too far away where a fresh quitter, unless very determined to trawl back through a lot of data, will never come across these older pearls of wisdom and I think that's quite sad.

If anyone can think of a plan I'm all ears..

[nsd_user663_4197]

This was a brilliant post and has inspired me futher! My battle of the mind has been ongoing throughout my quit and often its great when you read something that has put your thoughts into words!

It would be good if we could have a section on the forum for golden posts but not sure how you would do it?

[nsd_user663_53658]

Here's an example of what long term quitters bring to the table x