Post by Ann on Dec 10, 2009 8:29:58 GMT -5
Truth Versus Illusion
A lot of times people first quitting, feel that quitting smoking is about fighting off your addiction for the rest of your life. That you just learn to get used to dealing with your craves.
This feeling is usually re enforced when a person is months into their quit and a very stressful situation happens to them. They might end up having very strong thoughts for smoking a cigarette. They might actually feel that they are having a phyiscal crave for a cigarette.
This can make a person feel like quitting is forever and this can make quitting seem daunting and feel very hard to do. This can feel dispairing and make the person quitting end up giving up on their quit.
I want to share with you two very valuable pieces of information that will help displell this very popular misconception about quitting.
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RELIEVING THE FALSE ANXIETY
When a smoker smokes a cigarette. Nicotine enters the brain mimicing the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. This enables nicotine to reach the reward center of the brain where it releases large amounts of unearned dopamine. This is where the smoker gets that AAAHHHH sensation we are all so familiar with. But what happens when nicotine starts to metabolize and leave the body? Nicotine also has the ability to fit the smoker's adrenaline locks, creating another chemical reaction causing us to have anxieties that are the same as if we were in a fight or flight situation. It is a false anxiety though. It is a lie. There is no outside variable creating this. It is only our brain and body being fooled into thinking that something is wrong.
A smoker then smokes a cigarette which temporarily turns off this fight or flight feeling. This temporarily puts a smoker back into inner peace. This is a false sense of accomplishment though. This is the cruel trick, because non smokers are already at this inner peace, constantly.
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THE ILLUSION OF RELIEVING STRESS
When people, (smokers and non smokers), are under stress. What happens, is a chemical reaction causes the persons urine to turn acidic. To the non smoker this is really not an issue, but to the smoker, this chemical reaction becomes their biggest issue.
When a smoker's urine turns acidic. What happens is that this chemical reaction actually causes the nicotine to get pulled from the bloodstream into the urinary tract and into the bladder. The nicotine doesn't even really get metabolized. It just literally just gets pulled out. This will quickly put the smoker into withdrawal. So now not only is the smoker under stress because of a certain situation , but they are also going into withdrawal at the same time. This doubles the anxieies that the smoker is now dealing with. So the active smoker, smokes a cigarette, relieves the anxieties from withdrawal, "Feels better" and then thinks that smoking helped "relieve" their stress. When all it did was relieve the anxieties from withdrawal. The original problem is still there, but now the smoker is able to deal with it, because they don't have their minds pre occupied with drug withdrawal. Now they are able to focus on resolving the problem.
The problem is that the smoker has performed this "stress relieving" ritual for so long. That they don't differenciate the difference bewtween relieving drug withdrawal and relieving stress.
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You may ask, why is this important to know after I quit smoking? I'm no longer doing this to myself.
The reason I think that it is so important to know this is, because a smoker has lived their life like this for years and most likely decades.
When their nicotine serum level got too low, this created an anxiety. After a certain amount of time of relieving this anxiety by smoking a cigarette, their subconscious began to automatically associate this anxiety with smoking a cigarette.
The same thing happened when the smoker was under stress. Not only did stress case the smoker to lose nicotine at an accelerated rate, which put them into withdrawal. Stress also created an anxiety. An anxiety that felt very similar to the anxiety that needing a cigarette feels like. This also made the smoker's subconscious associate this with a cigarette and say " OK time to smoke now."
What is important for a person quitting to understand is, that yes, when we first quit there is withdrawal. Yes there are physical craves, then those craves turn into thoughts. Those thoughts then turn into memories.
What can happen in a person's quit though, is that they are confronted with something that put them under stress. This could happen months after they quit smoking.
Maybe a loved one dies. Maybe they get fired from their job. Maybe ther car breaks down, etc, etc. This puts stress on the quitter and what this does is bring that old familiar feeling of anxiety back. This anxiety could feel just like those old crave feelings when they smoked. This is turn, makes the subconscious associate this scenario with thoughts of smoking.
It is important though, to realize that this is thought. Stress is causing an association trigger, that is creating this thought. It is NOT a need for nicotine.
It is important to differenciate a real crave and life's stress.
It is NOT because you are a hopeless nicotine addict that is creating this "crave". It is not because you will have to fight off your addiction for the rest of your life. It is only simply your subconscious doing it's job. It doesn't really know the difference between stress and relieving withdrawal. It has been conditioned for years and most likely decades of addiction, that when it felt this anxiety for what ever reason caused it, that a cigarette would relieve it. You have to retrain your subconscious to break this association.
If you find yourself under a stressful situation and start getting thoughts of smoking. Step back and remind yourself that it is a thought. It is not a physical need. This will help your subconscious to break this association with smoking.
As life goes on, we will have stress in our lives, no matter how much we try not to. It is important to realize that quitting smoking is not about fighting off your addiction for the rest of your life, but the gift of freeing yourself from your addiction for the rest of your life.
Remember, physical craves do NOT last forever when you quit.
The only people who have craves forever, are people that don't quit smoking.
found on Quitnet
A lot of times people first quitting, feel that quitting smoking is about fighting off your addiction for the rest of your life. That you just learn to get used to dealing with your craves.
This feeling is usually re enforced when a person is months into their quit and a very stressful situation happens to them. They might end up having very strong thoughts for smoking a cigarette. They might actually feel that they are having a phyiscal crave for a cigarette.
This can make a person feel like quitting is forever and this can make quitting seem daunting and feel very hard to do. This can feel dispairing and make the person quitting end up giving up on their quit.
I want to share with you two very valuable pieces of information that will help displell this very popular misconception about quitting.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RELIEVING THE FALSE ANXIETY
When a smoker smokes a cigarette. Nicotine enters the brain mimicing the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. This enables nicotine to reach the reward center of the brain where it releases large amounts of unearned dopamine. This is where the smoker gets that AAAHHHH sensation we are all so familiar with. But what happens when nicotine starts to metabolize and leave the body? Nicotine also has the ability to fit the smoker's adrenaline locks, creating another chemical reaction causing us to have anxieties that are the same as if we were in a fight or flight situation. It is a false anxiety though. It is a lie. There is no outside variable creating this. It is only our brain and body being fooled into thinking that something is wrong.
A smoker then smokes a cigarette which temporarily turns off this fight or flight feeling. This temporarily puts a smoker back into inner peace. This is a false sense of accomplishment though. This is the cruel trick, because non smokers are already at this inner peace, constantly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE ILLUSION OF RELIEVING STRESS
When people, (smokers and non smokers), are under stress. What happens, is a chemical reaction causes the persons urine to turn acidic. To the non smoker this is really not an issue, but to the smoker, this chemical reaction becomes their biggest issue.
When a smoker's urine turns acidic. What happens is that this chemical reaction actually causes the nicotine to get pulled from the bloodstream into the urinary tract and into the bladder. The nicotine doesn't even really get metabolized. It just literally just gets pulled out. This will quickly put the smoker into withdrawal. So now not only is the smoker under stress because of a certain situation , but they are also going into withdrawal at the same time. This doubles the anxieies that the smoker is now dealing with. So the active smoker, smokes a cigarette, relieves the anxieties from withdrawal, "Feels better" and then thinks that smoking helped "relieve" their stress. When all it did was relieve the anxieties from withdrawal. The original problem is still there, but now the smoker is able to deal with it, because they don't have their minds pre occupied with drug withdrawal. Now they are able to focus on resolving the problem.
The problem is that the smoker has performed this "stress relieving" ritual for so long. That they don't differenciate the difference bewtween relieving drug withdrawal and relieving stress.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You may ask, why is this important to know after I quit smoking? I'm no longer doing this to myself.
The reason I think that it is so important to know this is, because a smoker has lived their life like this for years and most likely decades.
When their nicotine serum level got too low, this created an anxiety. After a certain amount of time of relieving this anxiety by smoking a cigarette, their subconscious began to automatically associate this anxiety with smoking a cigarette.
The same thing happened when the smoker was under stress. Not only did stress case the smoker to lose nicotine at an accelerated rate, which put them into withdrawal. Stress also created an anxiety. An anxiety that felt very similar to the anxiety that needing a cigarette feels like. This also made the smoker's subconscious associate this with a cigarette and say " OK time to smoke now."
What is important for a person quitting to understand is, that yes, when we first quit there is withdrawal. Yes there are physical craves, then those craves turn into thoughts. Those thoughts then turn into memories.
What can happen in a person's quit though, is that they are confronted with something that put them under stress. This could happen months after they quit smoking.
Maybe a loved one dies. Maybe they get fired from their job. Maybe ther car breaks down, etc, etc. This puts stress on the quitter and what this does is bring that old familiar feeling of anxiety back. This anxiety could feel just like those old crave feelings when they smoked. This is turn, makes the subconscious associate this scenario with thoughts of smoking.
It is important though, to realize that this is thought. Stress is causing an association trigger, that is creating this thought. It is NOT a need for nicotine.
It is important to differenciate a real crave and life's stress.
It is NOT because you are a hopeless nicotine addict that is creating this "crave". It is not because you will have to fight off your addiction for the rest of your life. It is only simply your subconscious doing it's job. It doesn't really know the difference between stress and relieving withdrawal. It has been conditioned for years and most likely decades of addiction, that when it felt this anxiety for what ever reason caused it, that a cigarette would relieve it. You have to retrain your subconscious to break this association.
If you find yourself under a stressful situation and start getting thoughts of smoking. Step back and remind yourself that it is a thought. It is not a physical need. This will help your subconscious to break this association with smoking.
As life goes on, we will have stress in our lives, no matter how much we try not to. It is important to realize that quitting smoking is not about fighting off your addiction for the rest of your life, but the gift of freeing yourself from your addiction for the rest of your life.
Remember, physical craves do NOT last forever when you quit.
The only people who have craves forever, are people that don't quit smoking.
found on Quitnet