Stress After Quitting

The holiday season is upon us and I have seen quite a bit at different sites where people are getting strong urges to smoke.I think a lot of it has to do with stress and stress is a big association trigger for a lot people when they quit smoking, BUT there are reasons why and I think understanding so helps deal with these urges.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stress is a huge trigger for people quitting smoking and a lot of people believe that on some level smoking relieved their stress. It didn't. Smoking actually creates stress. The whole business of smoking is relieving an anxiety that the previous cigarette created. AN ANXIETY THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. I'm sure everyone here knows that nicotine releases dopamine, but that it only part of the story. Not only did the brain have to turn it's own sensitivity down to naturally release dopamine, causing the smoker to rely a lot more on the cigarette just to feel normal. Nicotine also had the ability to fit the smoker's adrenaline locks. As the effects of nicotine wore off and adrenaline was pumping through the bloodstream. The smoker was left with a subtle fight or flight feeling. A heightened anxiety. A empty feeling of insecurity and an uncomfortableness. The mind and body were being fooled into thinking that something was wrong. Like the person was in some kind of danger, when in fact, there was no outside danger there. So the smoker would smoke a cigarette and temporarily switch off this feeling and once again feel safe and comfortable. One of the problems with stress, is that nicotine is a very unstable alkoloid. Stress though is an acidic producing event. What this does is it actually causes the nicotine to get pulled out of the bloodstream at an accelerated rate. This will quickly put the smoker into the first stages of withdrawal. So when we smoked and were under stress. This only created a compounded problem of having withdrawal on top of what was initially creating our stress. So we smoked a cigarette. Relieved withdrawal and "felt better". The problem is that after years or most likely decades, the line has blurred between releiving stress and withdrawal. we started to become brainwashed that on some level smoking relieved our stress. It didn't. Nothing changed. The initial problem that originally created our stress was still there. It is just that we were now able to deal with the problem because we were no longer preoccupied with the compounded uncomfortable feeling of drug withdrawal. We had temporarily pacified the monkey. You may ask, " Why do I need to know this. I'm no longer doing this to myself." I think that it is very important to know this, because even when we first quit, our subconscious hasn't....yet. After years of smoking, our subconscious has been conditioned to associate smoking a cigarette with negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, stress,smoking cessation, sadness etc. This is because a lot of times these negavtive emotions caused a real physiological reaction that put us into drug withdrawal. So even when we quit, we have a lot of left over false memories in the subconscious telling us that if we feel stress. Smoke a cigarette and we'll feel better. This may sound like a contradiction, because we no longer want to smoke but in reality it is only our subconscious doing it's job. It is only trying to keep us safe and comfortable and that is the paradox of smoking. Smoking is neither safe nor comfortable, but nicotine has tricked us! It has tricked our subconscious! The previous cigarette created a false feeling of danger. It created anxieties for us, but our subconscious figured something out. If we smoked another cigarette we would once again "feel safe and comfortable." It doesn't really know the difference between real stress or relieving withdrawal, because the two are very similar. It has been conditioned for years and most likely decades of addiction, that when we felt this anxiety for what ever reason caused it, that a cigarette would help relieve it. If you find yourself under a stressful situation and start getting thoughts of smoking. Step back and remind yourself that it is a thought. It is an association trigger. It is not a physical need. This will help your subconscious to break this association with smoking. A lot of people relapse because they fall for this trick. They still believe on some level that smoking will help them relieve their stress and help them get through that bad moment. What they usually find out is that smoking not only did not help them get trhough a bad day,stop smoking now, but it ruined that day and quite possibly the next day and the next...... Don't fall for the lie anymore!! Don't believe in th cigarette!! When we first quit smoking. Knowing why we feel like smoking while under stress may not take away those thoughts or urges, but hopefully it will change how you deal with them. Remember, craves do not last forever. The only people that have craves forever are people that don't quit smoking. Eric I freed myself on 7/7/04