Today marks one month into my quit. Not my first quit, unfortunately, but I intend to make it my last -- one day at a time!  I'm glad you turned to this forum for support -- it has helped me so much during the first horrible weeks of quitting. For me, it has been so helpful to constantly remind myself that I am not my own worst enemy, i.e. a weak person who took up a bad habit and hasn't been strong enough to resist doing it even though I know how bad it is for me. The enemy is the power of the drug we all became addicted to: nicotine. I remind myself that my addiction to nicotine resulted in my brain creating more receptors / pleasure centers that tell me I need the drug in order to be happy or relieve stress. The good news is, the longer I go without nicotine, those receptors go away. Yes, the brain physically changes!! This is awesome for those of us in the early stages who can't conceive of life without smoking. I also lean heavily on the success of all the ex-smokers on this forum. Bless you all! As I mentioned, I've quit before. I recognize that what brought me back, every time, was the decision just to have a puff. So I really take to heart the "NOPE" pledge. Finally -- I want you to know that my quit has already become easier. You CAN do this thing!

That is such a pleasure to hear! I am almost 6 moths in. Things have changed a lot, Im getting a lot more done, I have more energy and I realized I never really enjoyed smoking at all, I was just addicted to nicotine, and fell pray to tobacco companies ploys to make smoking seem like the bad/cool thing to do. Another factor is my smoking friends, we lolled each-other into a comfortable denial. I still have the same friends and I do not preach, it doesn't help anyways. I just chose to stop. Do I get cravings sometimes? yes. Not when I see someone smoking interestedly enough. My brain all of a sudden is triggered, but it's not really me, it's an instinct what was formed during the age of 15 to 48, in that part of the brain you were talking about. So I just get over it and it goes away.

Well done!

Would love to hear how your quit is progressing, I am in my 21 st day and having survived NYE am lookin forward to a smoke free year.

Happy New Year, 

Blessings to you

Anthony