It's funny that you should post this today.... I was on my way to work this morning and I had a hunger pang in my tummy. I was actually hungry. I thought this is sort of what I feel like with a withdrawl pang. It didn't hurt...it was just a little nudging from my tummy.... just like I keep trying to tell myself that a "crave" is just a little nudge. No more no less. I have found the less I dwell on the urges the better I can control them. [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 6/11/2006 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 10 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 208 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $35.9 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 1 [B]Hrs:[/B] 0 [B]Mins:[/B] 19 [B]Seconds:[/B] 8

Well said Shevie. Get your 12 gauge out and I'll get my broom! It doesn't matter what you call it. We are all QUIT! We DO NOT SMOKE. Period. Regardless of what comes our way, regardless of how we deal with situations, we do not smoke. N.O.P.E. is our motto and we need to stick to it. It is not ok to smoke! Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Smoking KILLS! That is a fact. Kick, scream, fight, cry, break dishes, punch a pillow, whatever it takes just don't smoke. And when none of that works, you still don't smoke. Take what you want and leave the rest. However, there are memebers here who spend a lot of time researching facts for their posts. If you are going use information from someone's post, please be sure to quote them accurately. None of us like to be misunderstood. I don't know where our drill sergeant has been lately but I think he needs to get back in here and start the sermons again about how [B]Knowledge Replaces Fear[/b] [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 7/1/2005 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 355 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 7,109 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $1242.5 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 31 [B]Hrs:[/B] 7 [B]Mins:[/B] 50 [B]Seconds:[/B] 50

Well said Mama! Shevie and Ed to your corners please! :p You are both saying the same thing. A good debate requires a disagreement. :) Just don't smoke whether you get a "thing" or not. (Oh my a thing) I have been quit for almost a year now. CRAVES still come for me. Maybe they will for you and maybe they wont. Does it matter? No it does not because when we smoked, we were always craving a cigarette. From the time we put the cigarette out (maybe even before) we were already planning on when and where the next one would be. Today, we do not smoke. We are free from the enslavement and insanity that smoking brought to our lives. Rejoice in the freedom friends. Something I use to say all the time and haven't for a while: "When I smoked, I wanted a cigarette all the time; now that I don't, I only want on some of the time". No Smoking Allowed Folks!!!!!!! [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 7/1/2005 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 355 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 7,114 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $1242.5 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 31 [B]Hrs:[/B] 8 [B]Mins:[/B] 24 [B]Seconds:[/B] 42

Wonderful post Shevie!!!!! I couldn't agree more! When I read the title of this post, I was thinking he was going to talk about his 1 year reward drum set! :) Crave the Quit! Pam [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 10/28/2005 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 236 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 5,909 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $974.68 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 17 [B]Hrs:[/B] 3 [B]Mins:[/B] 45 [B]Seconds:[/B] 43

Lately this board reminds me of being in a large room full of people, everyone is talking or focused on what is in their own head, no one is really listening, you can't be heard over the din, and what is heard are only fragments that are taken out of context and run with, passed on with other out-of-context fragments until it is all mixed up into a goo of confusion. It makes me want to jump up onto a table with my 12-gauge and blow a hole in the roof to get everyone's attention. I just read a post that says you don�t crave after a few days or a few weeks. Baloney!!! Denying it or renaming it doesn�t make it go away. My boss got hit with a killer crave after 11 years of being quit. It wasn�t a memory, it wasn�t a withdrawal symptom, it wasn�t a trigger, and it wasn�t an aardvark. It was a [u]crave[/u]. Nothing more, nothing less. It didn�t end his quit, he didn�t spend days afterward trying to define the source or worrying that the end was near. He simply got through it and went on with his life as if it had never happened. There has also been a lot of discussion concerning craves vs. memories vs. triggers vs. withdrawal symptoms vs. smoking thoughts vs. whatever. They are not necessarily all the same thing and aren�t interchangeable. The evolution of a crave: You have a memory (conscious or subconscious) of an event you smoked during in some previous time. That memory, if strong enough, will trigger a crave which is an uncontrolled, demanding desire for a cig. A crave can happen at any point in time from when you quit until when you die. Depressing? Not at all. My boss has been quit for 21 years now. That killer crave he had was 10 years ago. Smoking thoughts are not craves. Memories of smoking are not craves. I think of smoking and I remember smoking. I cannot come to this board and not think and remember. I do not have craves, even weak ones. Just because I think of smoking and remember smoking does not mean I have any desire to smoke. To borrow another member�s analogy, I sometimes remember and think of my ex-wife, but there is in no way any desire, just relief to be away. That �quit� has lasted 26 years. I�m making this post because I�m concerned for the future of the newer quitters. I�m concerned that they will

I've always been a believer in forewarned is forearmed, Rob47. Knowledge of what was happening got me through the 100-day kill-me-now craves. If I hadn't understood them, I'm sure I would have caved. LOL at the Cheney analogy. :) Phillip, I sure hope this provided some help. I've been pulling for you. Yes, Zany, I'm a tad grouchy today, but not craving. I haven't had a true crave since November. I do have an allergy to air pollution that my stupid @#%#$% brain still tries to interpret as a need for a cig. The feeling is sort of like wearing clothes that are too tight. Uncomfortable, but not enough to make me go naked. I agree 100%, Lady. It is NOT okay to smoke. Smoking is NOT an option. You are either quit, or you are NOT quit. There is NO in between, there is NO gray area. Golferman, you are missed. It is wonderful you are able to go on with your smoke-free life, but I'm really hoping you'll chime in here. We need a bit of that whip-cracking that you do so well. OK, folks. Lock and load. It's demon blasting time! :eg: Shevie [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 5/23/2005 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 394 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 7,889 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $1497.2 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 73 [B]Hrs:[/B] 13 [B]Mins:[/B] 1 [B]Seconds:[/B] 43

That's it, Mr. Ed. [quote]Cravings do not exist after a couple of weeks (some say a couple of days). My body has been nicotine-free for 8 weeks - it is not possible for me to have cravings any more. [/quote] Cravings are not the result of nicotine. They are the result of the lack of nicotine. You are absolutely correct that the triggers become less frequent with time. As you experience life smoke-free, your brain is constantly being rewired to no longer associate events with smoking. Every time an association is broken, that trigger ceases to be. Unfortunately, there is no way we can totally relive our previous smoking life. There will always be the potential for some deep-buried trigger to get tweaked one day. This has no impact on the strength of any future craves that may occur, however. I don't know just what determines the strength of a crave. I do know that, for me, expecting a crave seemed to always take away its power. Expected craves always ended up being wimpy little things, if they happened at all. The flip side is that unexpected ones are the ones that will take you to your knees. I'm guessing a crave months or years down the road would fall into that catagory. Please understand that I do take what you say seriously. You have given much valuable support to many here. I hope this thread has not caused any hard feelings with you or anyone else. That was not my intention. Shevie [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 5/23/2005 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 394 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 7,892 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $1497.2 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 73 [B]Hrs:[/B] 13 [B]Mins:[/B] 29 [B]Seconds:[/B] 35

Mr. Ed, in all honesty, yours was [u]one of many[/u] posts by several members that brought me to this. I am in no way singling you out. I hope you don't take it that way. The general consensus here has always been that a crave is a demanding desire for a cigarette, regardless of when it strikes. My concern is that if word gets out that craves stop after a few days or weeks, then someone will get hit with one later on and lose it, simply because of a redefinition. I've watched the moods and beliefs of this board swing in various directions over the past year, and I've seen how a slight confusion or misunderstanding can have effects far beyond what one would ever consider possible. All I'm trying to do here is avert what I see as a potential future problem. Shevie [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 5/23/2005 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 394 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 7,891 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $1497.2 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 73 [B]Hrs:[/B] 13 [B]Mins:[/B] 18 [B]Seconds:[/B] 20

OK, Mr. Ed. If you [u]must[/u] call them "smoking thoughts" instead of craves, so be it. I just hope no one down the road misinterprets this redefinition and ends up in trouble. If they do, we'll clean up the mess. Shevie [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 5/23/2005 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 394 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 7,892 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $1497.2 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 73 [B]Hrs:[/B] 13 [B]Mins:[/B] 35 [B]Seconds:[/B] 9

That's what I'm trying to do, Mr. Ed. There is no "definition" thread. Everyone has always just adopted the terms in use when we arrived to the SSC. The generally accepted definition of a crave was in place long before I arrived here. It is a need for nicotine. Some craves are "kill me now", others are light. A crave is more than a simple thought. It's hard to explain but it generally manifests as a feeling in the gut, similar to anxiety. Some have described strong craves as actually painful. Along with this feeling are mental drives to satisfy the need for nicotine. Most people are able to maintain control over these drives, but some don't. That�s an entirely separate topic. The concept of the "memory trigger" was introduced by me. It was something that crossed my mind as I was researching the basis for my "Rewards, nicotine, and the brain" thread. The idea was that craves occurring after the so-called detox period of 72 hours (which, BTW, I don�t completely believe in) were solely the result of memory associations. Little research has been done with respect to this in nicotine addiction, but considerable has been done in other addictions and that research supports the memory triggered crave theory. So it appears we are talking about the same thing. We do need to be careful that everyone understands what we are saying, though. Just imagine if you say that someone won�t have a crave after some period of time and a new quitter reads it. Then someone else who has been quit a longer time says they are having a crave. How would an emotionally stressed and strung out new quitter react? Panic, despair, and frustration would most likely be the first responses, quickly followed by thoughts of �Why bother�, �Is this all there is?�, �I can�t live like that�, etc. Then they post, other newbies pick up on it, and chaos reigns. I�ve seen it happen more than once. Not on this precise topic, but on similar ones. That is what I�m trying to prevent, Mr. Ed. I hope this sheds some light on my point of view. Shevie [B]My Milage:[/B] [B]My Quit Date: [/B] 5/23/2005 [B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 394 [B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 7,893 [B]Amount Saved:[/B] $1497.2 [B]Life Gained:[/B] [B]Days:[/B] 73 [B]Hrs:[/B] 13 [B]Mins:[/B] 51 [B]Seconds:[/B]