question for you diehard ex-smokers that QUIT..
 

Do these craving go away after a while?

Or do they stay forever and just get less?


For the people that claim: "i stopped and never had a craving or urge to light on up" .. trust me: you havent enjoyed smoking like i do :-)

So give me an honest answer: does this go away ?

For me yes...just not when im drunk. I take a few puffs after 10 beers but thats about it. I totally lost the feeling of wanting to light a cig when you wake up. Its disgusting to me now. And i smoked for 10 years.

I seem to manage quite well through the day like you say: not in the mood for smoking in the morning.

But stress & sex really puts my mind on cigs for hours and not much i can do to stop it.


How long did it take for it to go away?

every once in awhile i get the craving for a cig even though the smell of someone smoking them makes me gag now.

i smoked and then quit cold turkey, and its been years and the craving can come at the weirdest time.

like at funeral. and it will be a powerful craving. but easy to fight off.

I observed it from my Dad and my uncle. They were heavy smokers but when they chose to quit smoking it just went out of their system completely. They were not smoking for almost three years now.

It helps if you dont hang arond with smokers. It is better not to have any friends anyway ;)

OK, I quit 10 years ago. I still miss it, I still crave it and I LOVED to smoke. I didn't quit just to do it. I am an asthmatic and ended up in the intensive care unit a few times, not from smoking, but smoking made it worse. When you get to the point that you are literally suffocating, you do what you have to do, so I quit. And to be honest, quitting was sooo easy after not being able to get any air into my lungs.

I do breath better now, but I want a ciggarette every now and then.....

I have an urge every day
been almost a year without one though :)

Just gotta be stronger than the ciggarete :)

I dont own an lighter nor do i keep smokes around so when i want one - well i dont have a way to get one

Read the following page :

http://whyquit.com/whyquit/A_Symptoms.html

And bookmark the site.


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

http://whyquit.com/whyquit/z_CraveGrafBW.gif

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.

I quit 20 years ago. In that time I got re-hooked twice.

It never really goes away, although after 5 years it gets better.

Best thing I can do is look forward to the day that the doc tells me I have a fatal disease, then I plan to light up again. :1orglaugh

damn dude.. you're saying all you have to live for is dying? that really sucks.

the hardest thing about not smoking is contemplating when you're going to quit. once it's all said and done, there are no problems.

thank you

ahahahaha.. you are not really helping.

It goes away eventually. It does take a while, sometimes years. But it will go away.

:(:(:(:(

i quit over 6 years ago cold turkey, before that i smoked for 5 years straight at a pack and a half to 2 packs a day marlboro reds. today, i have no urge whatsoever to smoke a cig at all and i'm totally done with them. the only thing i occasionally do is have a cigar during celebrations

:1orglaugh Don't listen to the pessimists. After 2 weeks the cravings are going to be less intense.. I quit 4 years ago (smoked for almost 10 years). And I don't think about it at all.

Facts
 

Each cigarette you smoke contains over 4700 chemical additives to help keep you addicted 566 of those are known or allowed by your government. 17 are generally accepted as carcinogens. Cravings are at there worst during the first 7 days and as you get further away from the day you stopped the easier it becomes to control them.
The best way to reduce cravings is to quickly detox the body of nicotine. Alcoholics must never have a drink again and cigarettes are a much worse addiction, once you stop you must never have even a single puff or you are back on the road to smoking.
The BMA did a 4 year study and found the following in the first year:
Hypnosis stops 2 %
Cold Turkey 3%
The Gum stops 5%
The Patch stops 8%
Zyban ( wellbutrin ) 27%
Low Level Laser Therapy 85%
The only method that uses a detox program is low level lasers

WTF is this and where did you get these "facts"?

I can tell you from direct personal experience that hypnosis stops well over 2%. I well crafted hypnosis program delivered by a competent hypnotist can eliminate the desire to smoke and thus eliminate the act of smoking.

Maybe your numbers came from someone selling Low Level Laser Therapy. Currently my success in using hypnosis for smoking cessation in clients is 89%. This is the number that we have derived from 3 month, six month and one year follow-up questionnaires. My personal belief is that my hypnosis program is effective in over 95% of the cases, but we often loose contact with clients and in an attempt to not skew the numbers in our favor we count a non-reply as a failure. This makes our numbers artificially low, but I am happy with it that way.

I would be willing to offer a free audio recording to anyone who wishes to stop smoking.

it goes away . . . .but hookah once in a while is nice

Ahh thread bumped:

I 'quit' smoking and was on day 3 with that post. I lasted for i think 7 or 8 days
and the cravings do go away.. or at least. get less.

Compare it to feeling thirsty like you're seriously dehydrated for the first 5 days to
the feeling thirsty as in "hmm.. a beer would be nice" after that.
It doable.. and there were dayframes were i would forget about cigs for 5 hours or so.

But hell. smoking IS fun and gives life color.

Warning - month old thread :)

WTF the fact came from is in my post if you read it ??
BMA = British Medical Association it was a 4 year study conducted through Middlesex University a few years ago No such study exists in the USA . But the FDA are conducting an IRB as we speak on LLLT and the results i have seen so far are outstanding.

Zyban is damn good pills..
i use it right now,and trying to quit....
from 50-60 cigs per day i am on 2-5 per day now...
planing to quit,i hope i will,but it is damn hard when u love cigs like me :(

sometimes i dont smoke for 2-3 days and then light 1 etc...
must be very strong to really stop

I smoked from about the age of thirteen up until I was forty-three. At the end I was smoking 80 a day and one day I just got up and realised how pathetic it was to be dependant on such a filthy fucking habit so I just stopped overnight.

I had a few cravings at first but I have been stopped for over five years now and never even think about cigarettes anymore.

Sure, send me a MP3.

4+ years, and I still have cravings, and sometimes they are intense motherfuckers.

Thing is, when I first quit, I would have these really bad ones that would last half an hour or so. It seemed like I was in a non stop craving mode. Now they are really intense, but only for a fleeting moment, and not very often.

i stopped 7 months ago and even though i know that i will NEVER smoke again (hated the way it made me feel physcially), I still like to light up a cigar (Black & Milds) every once in a while. its not addicting, dont inhale cigars so i dont feel like shit, and it still gives me the satisfaction that smoking did in certain situations (like playing poker or playing slot machines at the casino, etc)

i know im walking a fine border by smokin cigars here & there but i truly & honestly know that I will never touch a cig and/or smoke a cig for the rest of my life. its not worth it to me, in EVERY sense.

yes, I know this is an old thread, but to the original question...

smoked for 16 years, and loved it, too... been quit for 3 years now, and I still get urges, but mostly when I am upset or stressed... the good thing, is that I am easily distracted from the urges now.

I've actually been thinking of buying a pack this past week, but I know deep inside that I never ever want to go thru the hell of quitting again... staying quit is easy, actually quitting is the hardest thing I can think of.

ill take a copy too.

I'm actually going to embark on my quitting journey starting tomorrow. I'm about to have a kid and I don't want to be a smoker and have a kid. :2 cents:

stick in there brother... its a rough road, but you feel so good after the first month :) Ill never go back!

the best bit is when you have a smoker get into your car... you'll wonder how you ever got near a woman smelling like that... stick to a GOOD cigar :)

www.quitnet.com

free 24/7 support (great for when you're up at 3am, pissed that you cant smoke lol) :thumbsup

also has a cool tracker thingy that shows how many hours, days, and months you've been quit for and how many cigs you HAVENT smoked to-date, and how much of your life you saved so far. :) check it out!

been more than a year now after maaany years of smokinf, I'll never go back

Prepare to get fat though, I think I gained about 7-8 kilos since I stopped and that's with going to the gym regularly

its nice being able to taste your food again huh!

Why in the hell would someone even WANT to use LASER therapy to address an issue that is completely behavioral? I am not saying that LLLT does not work. I am saying why would someone even consider something like that? I am also completely challenging the results of this study by the BMA, specifically the success rates for hypnosis.

One must consider, however, the difference in how the government in the UK views hypnosis and how it is handled in the US. In the UK anyone can professionally practice hypnosis as therapy but you have to have a license to perform stage hypnosis. The British government has decided the hypnosis for entertainment is dangerous and therefore must be regulated but that hypnosis for therapy can be done at will. This leads me to question the qualifications of the hypnotists involved in the stop smoking study.

The only information I have to base my opinion on is real world practice of hypnosis and I can tell you without a single doubt that hypnosis is far more effective in smoking cessation that 2%.

I quit about a year and a half ago. I had smoked for 10 years, started when I was 12. Quitting was fairly easy. Only took willpower and determination.

However, staying quit is another matter. I still crave it daily. I have extremely vivid dreams in which I start smoking again - and they are better than wet dreams.

The guy who said he'd light up again if he was diagnosed with a fatal illness? Same here... I've actually had the thought that if I had a fatal illness, at least I would be able to smoke again.

I'd probably give up my left pinky finger to be able to smoke without the health hazards.

I started working out again and pulled a little muscle in my chesy. It swole up a little bit and scared me when I first felt it...thought it might be cancer. That was enough, haven't smoked since.

when you want to smoke, think about the "lump".

im not truly addicted, but i love lighting up a cig and smoking... i just dont "have" to have it all the time, but i do get cravings

i was never a heavy smoker and i usually just do it in social settings to relax with my beer

good luck with whatever you're doing!