Depressed

Hi Jr. You are doing great at 36 days smoke free. Are you also nicotine free? It does not matter how you quit but that you do. Knowing some facts does help in answering concerns. When not smoking, you do not get the 5 second delivery of nicotine to your sensors and receive pleasure. That is the part we miss, We can raise our dopamine through other pleasures like eating chocolate, the smell of lavender, the act of love or any thing that makes us feel good. Helping others and learning also raises our dopamine levels which may be why I had such an easy quit. I spend a lot of time on this forum hoping to help others get through their journeys easier.

While as smokers, we have from time to time wanted to quit smoking to some degree..... YOU have to want it, not do it because your daughter wants you to. The good news is that by reading a simple book, you can learn what nicotine did and actually want to quit for yourself. Accepting change because YOU want to allows you to embrace it with both heart and mind. This mindset makes it much easier and sustainable. It is no longer a battle of wills.

You feel depressed. Did you give up drinking as well? Friends and things that you used to do related to both smoking and drinking?

When we promise ourselves to quit smoking, it means just that. We did not promise to forsake our friends and our other pleasures in life. I did not make my hubby smoke elsewhere because I decided to quit smoking. I did not deny myself the pleasure of my friends over, and shocked them when i told them to go ahead and have one. I still went to poker at the bar and outside with the smoking crowd that i was friends with. Some people may not be able to do this, but it reinforces the fact that you CHOOSE to be a non-smoker. By reading the book which is free , so no excuses....you will see how nicotine tricked us and how smoking only gave us the illusion that it gave us pleasure, confidence and relieved stress, hence relaxing us.

The truth is.... and you really must read my post which i just put a link to.....the only good smoking did was to relieve the craving that it itself caused. We just got hooked and brainwashed into systematically poisoning ourselves for decades.