Hi Pam,
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I mean, the addiction itself wasn't enough to keep me smoking.
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For me, it WAS the addiction, and as far as I can go back and be honest about it, it was ONLY the addiction that kept me smoking -to nicotine, very much like a drug. The only way I know how to explain this is to compare the addicition of nicotine, to cocaine. In the 80's, my friends and I (well some of them) loved cocaine. In fact, cocaine was not as nasty as nicotine. But back to the point... The rush and the frenetic addiction IS what kept me coming back, not because cocaine was a friend (smoking was never a friend, it was a cigarette that gave me a fix) both were addictions.
I put cocaine down one day- had just had enough, no help, no support, I just did it. With smoking, I KNOW I would never have gotten to the other side without all the love and support I found here at the SSC. The addicion of nicotine was stronger, more powerful than cocaine for me.
Ya know, Pam, when I really think about it, and go back in my mind looking at this quit journey, there were craves (but in case you don't remember the first week or at least most of it) I had a cold/flu thing, had decided to quit then bec. I didn't feel like smoking, so I slept through the first week for the most part. So the craves weren't there at all. Now, of course when I woke up, I did have the craves, BUT nothing like I read about here over and over. Maybe it is due to the difference in the way I saw the addiction and the place the addiction had in MY life. It was never, ever any kind of friend I missed, or anything like that. It was only a nasty and terrible (and deadly) addicition that I NEEDED, just like the needle in the arm - smack! Make sense...? Pure addiction, nothing else.
If anyone goes back the posts where I was having such a hard time (and I was), for the most part, were losses I had experienced and I guess never processed, deep inside... I remember Cobenfan going through old posts and saying to me one day that she had read one about my friend, Ken - when he was dying of AIDS, and I visited him (Ken was the love of my life)... when I quit, the hardest part of the journey was the PAIN I had to learn to process and deal with and get beyond...the smokescreen had protected me from fee
