Fellow Quitters - Here's a copy/paste from an article on the whyquit.com site...Good info on how getting past each craving episode will actually make you stronger! Yeah baby...keeping my Quit on...Day 6.
"Extinguishing Use Conditioning"
Embrace recovery don't fear it. Why fear a temporary journey of re-adjustment that transports us to a point in time where we're going days, weeks and eventually months without wanting to use nicotine?
Each cue driven crave episode presents an opportunity to extinguish additional conditioning and reclaim another aspect of life. We may have trained our mind to expect nicotine during stressful events, when walking in the back yard, while driving a car, talking on the phone or upon encountering another user. Attempting these activities after stopping may generate a short yet possibly powerful crave episode.
Success in moving beyond each episode awards the new ex-user return of another slice of a nicotine-free life, a surprising sense of calm during crisis, return of their yard, car, phone or friends. But be sure and look at a clock during craves as cessation time distortion can combine with fear or even panic to make a less than 3 minute episode feel much longer.
Research suggests that the average quitter experiences a maximum of 6 crave episodes per day on the third day of recovery, declining to about 1.4 per day by day ten. If each crave is less than 3 minutes and the average quitter experiences a maximum of 6 on their most challenging day, can you handle 18 minutes of challenge?
