question and thoughts
how long does it take for your body/metabolism/whatever to stabilize after you
quit smoking? I don’t feel a great deal different - except my chest doesn’t
hurt and I don’t wheeze.
Steve - you asked the other day if I was doing ABC’s. I don’t sit down and
write them out but I noticed today when I came upon a situation I hadn’t dealt
with since quitting, I kind of did an ABC in my mind on the fly so to speak.
Quick & dirty . . . A. new situation B. used to smoke when felt this way B1.
don’t smoke any more C. do something else. It passes through in a flash and I
forget about wanting or even thinking about a cigarette before I even know it.
Re: Pleasure/punctuation smokes. I like what Ion said about being calm. It
occurred to me that we don’t recognize calmness or contentedness like we do
chaos and anxiety. We’re always in a hustle and bustle and chasing butterflies
or killing rattlesnakes. Ion wrote “just bask and let the feelings wash over
me.” Why is it we think we have to DO something to acknowledge a moment or
feeling? I like this basking idea and I tried it after a nice meal with my
family and it felt good. Bask in good food, good company, a job well done, a
project complete, . . . . I think it’s called the joy of living. You know
this cog quit stuff may lead to a whole new sense of well being.and or just
being 
I hope you are all having a great day.
Carol
November 30th, 2005 at 3:08 pm
I don’t really know. For sure it’s very individual based on smoking
history, general health, current activity, etc. Some things like the
chest ache and the wheeze seem to clear up pretty quickly.
Other things like improved lung function take longer. Sense of taste and
smell can return within a few weeks. Emotional stability often takes
months. Most quitters find that it takes a year to move through the quit
process. (That’s not to say that it’s a year of working at it, just a year
of becoming a not smoker.)
Wish I had a more definitive answer.
Sounds like you pull up your cognitive thinking any time you need it.
Excellent.
It’s interesting that we need to make an effort to ‘bask’. Once we
do, we generally enjoy it. I think it was Cat (a cog quitter our newer
members wouldn’t know) who had to learn to sit out on her deck without a cig.
You’re right, and it does. Cognitive quitting is based pretty
much on some cognitive behavior techniques. Cognitive behavior therapy
makes realistic and rational thinking part of how we approach life
situations. As cog quitters we learn to do that within the very narrow area
of smoking and quitting and then discover that this sort of rational
thinking works for the rest of life’s situations. It really is a very
sane and calm way to live.
Steve