Even though you're past the physical part, the mental games are just beginning as your brain rewires itself to shut down those extra dopamine receptors it built when you were flooding your body with nicotine. It's going to take awhile to kill those little bastards off, so you're just gonna have to get used to the fog....it does get better, but even now (I hit 100 days quit today) there are days I feel like you do now. Those will happen less and less, trust me.
One day at a time. That's the only way to do this successfully.
Quit on.
I have a question about that - why does everyone say that the physical part is only a few days, when everything I've read here (and felt personally) suggests that is not the case - that there are physical issues to deal with for many weeks/months to come. I'm not talking about cravings; those I understand are mental. But the fog, for example, is physical, not mental.
Club - I'm not sure what it is, but I get a good sense from you. Like you know that nic isn't fucking around, but neither are you. The freedom is there and yours for the taking. All you have to do is make that promise and keep it for one full day, each and every day, and that freedom will slowly start to grow and eventually it will flourish. One important thing to keep in mind, however: you are every bit an addict today as you were 7 days ago and as you will be for the rest of your life. The one overarching factor that is entirely within your control today and from this day forward is the choice you make to an active "using" addict or a recovering non-using addict. While you will never be truly free of the fact that you are an addict, that sense freedom you crave will still be yours if you ride this quit every day, one day at a time. I'm not trying to be a downer - I want to be honest with you so that you accept and embrace what lies ahead.
As for the part about the physical vs. the mental, I find that this distinction is a bit of a misnomer. It is technically true that due to the half-life of nicotine, it is generally flushed from your system within 72 hours of cessation. There are other by-products of nicotine, such as cotinine, that have a much longer half-life and can stay in your system for a few weeks. That's all well and good, but to say that it's "all mental" 3 days after you quit is doing an incredible disservice to the exact level and scale of insidiousness that we have cultivated via this nicotine addiction. To start, every time nicotine entered your bloodstream and broke the blood/brain barrier, that would trigger a flood of dopamine to your neural receptors. You, me, and we all spent years packing our lips full of cat turds over and over again in order to satisfy our brain's receptors increasing appetite for more and more dopamine. The more nic we ingested, the more our brain grew new receptors to demand and harvest that precious dopamine. Just because there are zero traces of nicotine left in your body after 3 or 4 days doesn't mean that all of those receptors are going to instantly accept that the gravy train is over and go dormant. They are like little baby birds, wailing and chirping for mama to come bring them another fat, juicy worm. That is the essence of addiction.
The good news for you is that after the first 7 days, the worst, most relentlessly brutal days of your quit are behind you. That's not so say tomorrow is going to be a cakewalk, but bit by bit it will slowly start getting better. There's a well-established path here, and it really isn't overly productive to get consumed with what day 8 will feel like vs day 21 vs day 100. Just focus on being quit today and the other pieces will begin to fall into place.
Post up roll if you haven't already, and PM me for digits. Building up your network of contacts will be an absolutely VITAL component of your ongoing quit plan.
