I know what you mean. Doesn’t seem to make any difference that we know
why we’re bent out of shape, we still think of a cig. If things have “been
super stressful recently”, then you’ve been spending a lot of time
intensely feeling physical cues that were used to be connected to smoking
responses. If you haven’t been paying special attention to how your body is
feeling, then you may be experiencing a lot of the stress in a fairly
unconscious way. I wonder if physical sensations that we’re barely aware of
go hand in hand with established automatic responses? Which raises the
question, have you retrained Warren to choose a nonsmoking response to
“super stressful”?
so to try and offer an answer to -
I think we’re creatures of habit and patterns. We quit, establish some
new patterns of behavior, and get on with getting used to being not

smokers. As that happens, I think we move past the initial intensity and
move toward a way of getting through a nonsmoking day that becomes fairly
blasé, routine, and automatic. If it happens that we’re stressed for an
extended period, several days or longer, and we haven’t established the new
nonsmoking responses for Warren to choose, then he’s probably going turn to
the only responses he’s still got that are ‘valid’ in the ‘extended stress’
category. I’m guessing this is where you find yourself with smoking
thoughts/urges nipping at your mind.
Most cog quitters hit points where smoking thoughts are nagging at them
and it’s usually because they’ve stopped thinking about and working their
ABC’s and ‘what ifs’. They’ve stopped being aware in the moment of the
events they’re working with. Most often, just getting back to doing what
works…. plan for tomorrows events, be ready to deal with the ones you
can’t see by being aware and open to using your tools… will put you back
on track.
Try seeing instances that include smoking thoughts as pointers toward
areas that require more work. This sort of ties in with Cat’s “Firsts”
post. Just take it all one event at a time.
back on Jan. 10th you posted this:
“… my life isn’t peaches but hey I am not a smoker and I
love that sooo much I really do.”
I’ll bet that you’re even more pleased to be a not smoker now at
about 8 months. Don’t worry about the smoking thoughts. They’re remnants
that are still active in very stressful situations and you have the tools
to deal with them.
Steve