it’s not addiction, it’s conditioning
A long time ago you started smoking and became addicted to nicotine.
Do you remember how you felt when you’ve gone ‘too long’ without a
cigarette? Those were the first physical cues of nicotine withdrawal
(shallow breathing, muscle tension, foggy thinking, shifts in mood).
Most of us saw it as antsy, jumpy, impatient, irritable.
It didn’t take too long before you immediately, and almost
automatically, reached for a cigarette in order to relieve those
uncomfortable physical cues. It was much the same as driving… you
needed to pay attention while you were learning to drive. But once
you’d been driving for a while, most of the mechanics of staying in
your lane, adjusting speed, etc became pretty much automatic.
Once you became an automatic smoker, you no longer smoked only when
your nicotine level had dropped. You smoked anytime there was a
sensation that felt like a symptom of nicotine withdrawal. Anger,
hunger, fatigue, boredom… in fact any form of stress comes with
physical cues that ‘feel’ like nicotine withdrawal. This is why even
after you’re nicotine free, you continue to experience urges to smoke
particularly when you’re ’stressed’. And this is why I say learn to
recognize the physical cues that you experience throughout your day.
Start to connect effective non smoking responses to those cues.
Otherwise, quitting will be an exercise in hanging on waiting and
hoping that urges to smoke will go away.
When you quit, nicotine and nicotine withdrawal symptoms will go away.
But life doesn’t go away and stress doesn’t go away. If a cigarette
was your way of dealing with life and stress, you can not simply stop
smoking and leave a void. You must start to introduce effective timely
responses to basic physical needs. Set a timer and remind yourself to
pay attention to your body so you can begin to change your
associations to the physical cues of life.