Quitting smoking

[Charni]

Just so you know I never have, don't and never will smoke.

I know everybody says how hard it is to quit smoking and there are cravings but I have never once heard how long the cravings last for and when they stop. Can anybody tell me?

[b0i70y]

It can depend. I've smoked for about 5 years, and keep trying to quit, but it's hell. Generally, it takes between a week and a month for your body to completely detox. The emotional/habitual cravings should go away anywhere between a month and a year. It really is dependent on the person, and how much they've smoked.

[Chip]

The physical dependency on nicotine goes away after a few days. But the biorhythms, patterns (smoking after eating, when getting up, etc) take much longer. And the psychological imprints of "stressed... go smoke" take a very long time to go away.

The really insidious thing about cigarette smoking is that, the way it was explained to me, your body creates nicotine receptors each time you smoke. So with every cigarette, more receptors are created in the brain, and that's what creates the cravings. But nothing ever destroys or kills off the nicotine receptors; when you quit, they eventually shut down and no longer generate the cravings, but they are still there... and for most people, even a single cigarette, 20 years after quitting, will start to reactivate all of the old nicotine receptors that were dormant, and so re-addiction is near instant.

That's in part why they say that nicotine is more addictive than heroin or meth.

A couple of things that many people find helpful:

-- licorice sticks made from real licorice (fennel) as opposed to the artificial stuff... it both helps with the biorhythm of having something in your hands and in your mouth, and the fennel has some natural tendency to curb the nicotine craving.

-- Some people find taking some extra niacin (a b vitamin) can help with the cravings as well.

-- And the physical nicotine cravings are short-term; they last a minute or two and then fade. So if the person quitting can remember that the urge will fade within a few seconds, it can be easier to not pick up a smoke, and avoid restarting the addiction cycle.

[J Snow]

Well the way it was described to me in my brain and behavior class is as follows. Nicotine causes your brain to produce a neurotransmitter called dopamine. (Well technically I believe it inhibits another neurotransmitter that naturally inhibits the productions of dopamine, but kind of the same thing) Dopamine is the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure. As the dopamine levels in your brain rise and the receptors that detect it start getting activated more and more the brain starts killing off some of the receptors in an attempt to return the receptor activation back to its normal base rate.

What this means is that when you start removing the nicotine and your dopamine levels return to normal, the firing of those receptors is drastically reduced because there are less of them. The result is your brain feels like its producing less dopamine, and you tend to feel kind of depressed. The good news is that if the level of dopamine stays at the lowered rate for a consistent period of time those receptors will return in time. Basically if someone says a drug is chemically addictive, usually what they mean is it effects the brain's pleasure pathway in this way.

The physical dependency on nicotine goes away after a few days. But the biorhythms, patterns (smoking after eating, when getting up, etc) take much longer. And the psychological imprints of "stressed... go smoke" take a very long time to go away.

As a smoker who has quit for a couple weeks at a time, Chip has it right. After a few days, I start feeling pretty good about not smoking. What's hard to break is the habits. I'm used to smoking around my bf. We kind of base our activities around smoking. "Let's go to the bridge and smoke", "stop by and smoke a cigarette with me before class." I really can't go to the bars without smoking. The real problem is that you associate the behavior with every day activities, and then whenever you do them you just think about smoking and that's what triggers people to start again.

[Ben]

Once you've smoked a few times, the smell of cigarette smoke is really quite appealing, even if there are no instant cravings to smoke when stressed. The worst thing is passing smokers in the street, it takes will power to walk on by and not dwell in the smell.

[cscipio]

I quit smoking 7 years ago. I smoked from the age of 13 until 27. I gradually had a habit of 2 packs per day. Prior to smoking, I chewed tobacco. I caught my older brother chewing when I was 10 years old. What's the best way for an older brother to keep the younger from telling? The asshole shared!

Anyhow, when I quit the major cravings wore off in about a month; but, to this day, I still have little episodes where I feel I could use a smoke. My first post on this site about made me go out and get a pack. They're not cravings any more as much as reminiscing a long lost friend.

Just FYI - I've remained smoker friendly. I still let my friends smoke in my truck and house. I maintain that I will never become a violent and verbally abusive to smokers "non-smoker". I just don't smoke any more. I jokenly tell people that if I ever got a terminal illness and knew I have some hard limit on how long I have left to live that I'd walk out of the doctor's office and to the nearest 7-11 for a pack of Camels and just say the hell with it and smoke again.