<story><title>On Smoking</title><url>https://annagat.substack.com/p/on-smoking</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>unixhero</author><text>I quit smoking, and it was very very hard. I don&amp;#x27;t agree with you that the addiction, need and nicotine + other triggers will remain with me until the end of time.&lt;p&gt;Deprogramming is part of the process of quitting to smoke. I do now never want to smoke. It is not attractive to me as a way to relax or focus. I can stand in a tobacco section of an airport taxfree shop holding a 5 cartons in my hands with absolutely no desire to smoke. Likewise for being around other people who smoke. There is no creeping need, no urge.&lt;p&gt;The deprogramming comes last. When it came around for me, it was gradual but it did definitely come. There is no way, not a chance in the world that I would somehow &amp;quot;relapse&amp;quot;. It just is not interesting to me any more.&lt;p&gt;EDIT:
*On slaying the dragon*&lt;p&gt;I want to add the timeframes, which could be useful as anecdotal data.&lt;p&gt;It took me 9 months after my last cigarette to get rid of the &amp;quot;critical urges&amp;quot;.
Then after that it took another 12 months to get rid of the sweet itch I would get. After that period it was gone completely, and I mean absolutely completely. It was an exorcism. To anyone trying to quit smoking; know this, if you fight through it, it all does go away.</text></item><item><author>murat131</author><text>The thing about smoking is that when you quit smoking you quit it every day. Imagine a light switch on the wall. You turn it off by quitting smoking and you can always go back at a desperate time for instance and turn it on. And some time later off again. Smoking your first cigarette implants that light switch on your mind and you can&amp;#x27;t make it go away. Since you know how it makes you feel good when the switch is on, you at some level desire to back to it. Whole idea of quitting smoking is then finding ways to stop yourself from turning it on again and this is true until you die. So do yourself a favor and avoid any substance that creates such light switches in your mind.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Of course this is not the case for 100% of humans. Everyone is different. Some weak some strong in willpower, discipline, etc. But we can all agree that it is an addiction that sucks life out of you slowly. You wouldn&amp;#x27;t want to test your willpower your whole life against such a sneaky enemy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>reissbaker</author><text>+1. I quit smoking a little over a decade ago, gradually, by winnowing myself down cigarette-by-cigarette. If I smoked six cigarettes a day, for the next two weeks I&amp;#x27;d smoke five; by the end of two weeks I&amp;#x27;d stop feeling the urge for a sixth. Then I&amp;#x27;d move down to four, etc etc, until finally I was down to two and just stopped entirely.&lt;p&gt;For the first year after stopping &lt;i&gt;regularly&lt;/i&gt; smoking, I still felt the urge when drinking, and sometimes would have a cigarette with drinks on the weekend. After two years, I mostly stopped even wanting that.&lt;p&gt;For many years after, cigarette smoke still smelled good to me, although I had no daily urge for one. But eventually even the positive association with the smell faded, and now I&amp;#x27;m back to the original state of thinking cigarettes smell bad.&lt;p&gt;Nicotine&amp;#x27;s hooks run deep, but they&amp;#x27;re not permanent. Stay away long enough and you&amp;#x27;ll eventually make it back to wondering why anyone smokes in the first place.&lt;p&gt;I think it&amp;#x27;s important for people who are addicted to know that quitting is possible — you aren&amp;#x27;t permanently rewired. And it doesn&amp;#x27;t have to consume your life.</text></comment>
<story><title>On Smoking</title><url>https://annagat.substack.com/p/on-smoking</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>unixhero</author><text>I quit smoking, and it was very very hard. I don&amp;#x27;t agree with you that the addiction, need and nicotine + other triggers will remain with me until the end of time.&lt;p&gt;Deprogramming is part of the process of quitting to smoke. I do now never want to smoke. It is not attractive to me as a way to relax or focus. I can stand in a tobacco section of an airport taxfree shop holding a 5 cartons in my hands with absolutely no desire to smoke. Likewise for being around other people who smoke. There is no creeping need, no urge.&lt;p&gt;The deprogramming comes last. When it came around for me, it was gradual but it did definitely come. There is no way, not a chance in the world that I would somehow &amp;quot;relapse&amp;quot;. It just is not interesting to me any more.&lt;p&gt;EDIT:
*On slaying the dragon*&lt;p&gt;I want to add the timeframes, which could be useful as anecdotal data.&lt;p&gt;It took me 9 months after my last cigarette to get rid of the &amp;quot;critical urges&amp;quot;.
Then after that it took another 12 months to get rid of the sweet itch I would get. After that period it was gone completely, and I mean absolutely completely. It was an exorcism. To anyone trying to quit smoking; know this, if you fight through it, it all does go away.</text></item><item><author>murat131</author><text>The thing about smoking is that when you quit smoking you quit it every day. Imagine a light switch on the wall. You turn it off by quitting smoking and you can always go back at a desperate time for instance and turn it on. And some time later off again. Smoking your first cigarette implants that light switch on your mind and you can&amp;#x27;t make it go away. Since you know how it makes you feel good when the switch is on, you at some level desire to back to it. Whole idea of quitting smoking is then finding ways to stop yourself from turning it on again and this is true until you die. So do yourself a favor and avoid any substance that creates such light switches in your mind.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Of course this is not the case for 100% of humans. Everyone is different. Some weak some strong in willpower, discipline, etc. But we can all agree that it is an addiction that sucks life out of you slowly. You wouldn&amp;#x27;t want to test your willpower your whole life against such a sneaky enemy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dimmke</author><text>I agree. I quit smoking back in 2016 and I don’t think of myself as a smoker at all anymore. I sometimes have to remind myself I used to smoke.</text></comment>