Challenging Time

I will start my post with an anecdote. I went to the chemist recently to buy nicotine lozenges as I am still using some daily. A stranger came up to me while I was looking for the lozenges and said : "You don't actually want to quit do you"? I replied, "Yes I do want to, Iv'e done (the months Iv'e done). She then said "Oh, you do! Well, I have quit for 2 years at a time, occassionally, then I think Nah, I don't want to". I smiled and walked away, a bit startled by this encounter. It made me think about my own committment to staying quit off cigarettes and also how maybe it was her own perspective and that she may have felt challenged by my answer. Later on, like a couple of days later I was having trouble sleeping and I thought that I felt like smoking. I got a major craving that lasted a good 10-15 minutes, and it was very challenging. Later on the next day I wrote down that nicotine in cigarettes is not the only problem, the addiction is also very much about the identity of being a smoker. It served a kind of purpose - it used to relieve certain feelings, it released Dopamine, and it was a big part of daily life. Further, a lot about smoking is subconscious. I am no real expert on this but I know that when you challenge the thoughts around a craving you can win the fight because you can know that these thoughts and feelings will pass. It feels permenant almost at the time, but they do pass. I then came to the question of "Why NOT smoke"? I was then able to state all of my reasons why not and so I'm saying that when a craving hits it really helps to pay attention. I realise that there is still some conflict there in my mind, otherwise there would be no cravings, but hey I smoked for a very long time.