Hi, Vee. Welcome to the SSC and congratulations on 2 smoke-free days.
I went through exactly what you're feeling. The muscles that move me out to smoke would actually tense before I reined myself in. By the end of the day I was physically exhausted. It was a lot like walking a large, strong, ill-behaved dog on a leash and having to jerk him back every few seconds.
The reasons I smoked were boredom, anger, frustration, sadness, or [u]anything[/u] other than happy. Over the months I've learned how to deal with these feelings without smoking.
N2k's right about denying a crave weakening the next. Over the years that we smoked we developed memory associations with smoking. For example: Bored? Smoke for a diversion. Angry? Smoke to calm down and have a moment to think. Get in the car? Have a smoke. Finish a meal? Have a smoke. Leave a store? Have a smoke. Ad nauseum.
But just quitting does not stop the associations. When we feel an emotion or do an activity previously linked with smoking, we will experience a crave. When we get through that event smoke-free, the association is weakened. Eventually, the association will be extinquished, the link broken. Sometimes it will happen on the first exposure, sometimes it will take multiple exposures, but it will eventually happen. All we have to do is be patient and persevere.
One thing that really helped me was to look a few minutes ahead of what I was doing, watching for a time I would have lit up. When I saw a time approaching (i.e., leaving a store), I would expect the mother of all craves to hit. I found that anticipated craves are much weaker than expected, and sometimes they didn't happen at all.
It gets better, Vee. Hang on to that thought. You really are doing great. :)
Shevie
[B]My Milage:[/B]
[B]My Quit Date: [/B] 5/23/2005
[B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 352
[B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 7,050
[B]Amount Saved:[/B] $1337.6
[B]Life Gained:[/B]
[B]Days:[/B] 65 [B]Hrs:[/B] 17 [B]Mins:[/B] 12 [B]Seconds:[/B] 25
