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Cravings, Urges, Yearnings, Desires and Thoughts

The initial powerful cravings that overlay the up to 72 hours of abstinence needed to purge our blood of all nicotine are more creatures of conditioning than actual physical withdrawal. Our cravings are the mind's psychological means of warning us that it's time to ingest nicotine to avoid experiencing physical withdrawal (nervousness, irritability, grouchiness, tension, anger, rage, frustration, sweating, jitters, shaking, inability to concentrate and mind fog).

Like Pavlov?s dogs, who he conditioned to salivate upon the ringing of a bell, the nicotine addict?s mind has been conditioned to expect nicotine as soon as it begins to feel any discomfort associated with the onset of physical withdrawal. In response to falling nicotine levels, the habitual mind has been conditioned to intensify "desire" in order to cause us to ingest new nicotine and thereby avoid any discomfort. When we smoked, most of us received a gentle "desire" reminder every 20 to 30 minutes. If not satisfied, the desire would build and escalate in intensity to the point of becoming an influential urge or extremely demanding crave. Our mind has stored the means and manner by which it motivates us to ingest another hit of nicotine. Even after all nicotine has left our body (72 hours), our mind's crave generator remains in tact and fully functional.

Our Time Triggers - The foundation for our mind's knowledge of how to escalate the intensity of desire, to cause us to bring new nicotine into our body, is ?time.? Although the subconscious mind is believed to be incapable of independent reasoning or judgment, our conscious mind has conditioned our subconscious to realize that time depletes our blood nicotine level and that the onset of discomfort can be satisfied with nicotine. When we feel a crave begin to escalate in intensity, it is simply our subconscious turning up the volume control that it has been conditioned to believe will bring the desired result. But in that the subconscious mind is a product of conditioning and not independent reasoning, if nicotine is not ingested after desire?s volume or intensity control is increased to maximum, the subconscious simply gives up and quits.

It is extremely important to understand that no subconsciously triggered crave episode will last longer than three minutes. But, as noted above under physical symptoms, time perception distortion appears to be an almost universal recovery symptom and the minutes can seem like hours. It's important to look at a clock in order to reassure yourself, as it may only take seconds to locate a source of nicotine. This time distortion psychological mind warfare is the downfall of many as the rising tide of anxiety has them falsely believing that the only way to end their crave is by means of another fix.

As the body's nicotine level continues to fall during the 72 hours of physical withdrawal, our mind?s time trigger will continue to be revisited until all nicotine has left the body. It is then that true and complete reconditioning of our time trigger will occur as our physical symptoms begin subsiding and our mind becomes conditioned to realize that time will no longer produce new nicotine. Withdrawal?s peak occurs at the 72-hour mark. The average "starter" will experience approximately six desire attacks or crave episodes on day three. By hour 96 or day four the number of attacks or episodes will diminish to about 3.5. By day ten the average number of daily craves is less than two. In that our time trigger was reconditioned upon depletion of our body's nicotine, we need to explore and understand the reason for our continuing craves.

quit smoking crave chart



Overlaying our time trigger atop physical nicotine withdrawal symptoms can, for some, generate a rather intense 72-hour experience. But it's even more complex than that, as habit triggers are being encountered as well. Very few who are willing to attempt recovery lack the basic core dream and desire needed to carry them far enough (72-96 hours) to begin feeling their physical symptoms begin to gradually subside or to watch the number of subconscious crave episodes become reduced by almost half.

With a little self-determination, the real battle against physical nicotine addition is over in a matter of hours. It is hard to believe that drug manufactures have sold so many smokers on their "Nicotine Replacement Therapy" (NRT) gradual reduction approach, when they've done nothing more than repackage nicotine. They are telling smokers that the nicotine patch, gum, lozenge, spray or inhaler will make them more comfortable and they are 100% correct. Nicotine addicts need nicotine to maintain comfort. The question should be, does NRT's gradual nicotine reduction approach help smokers achieve permanent long-term abstinence from tobacco? Sadly, their own studies (the results of which they hide from their public web sites and refuse to share with smokers) show that 93% of over-the-counter NRT users relapse to smoking nicotine within just six months.

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