QUESTION THE ILLUSION ~RP

From Traveler24 on 5/28/2012 10:52:05 PM 

 This is a question a lot of people ask who have quit for a appreciatable amount of time and then have gone back to smoking. So what is the answer? Is it because nicotine is so addictive? No it is not. Although nicotine is addictive, once you break the cycle, your body no longer needs nicotine to feel so called normal or nicotine normal. The addiction is arrested. The actual physical addiction plays the smallest part timewise. 

Is the answer because smoking helped us relieve our stress? Now that we don't smoke we are having a harder time dealing with stress? No again. Smoking doesn't relieve stress. It only relieves the nicotine withdrawal that was caused by the stress. When it comes down to it and a person is having a hard time staying quit or after they quit for any appreciatable amount of time and ends up relapsing. It all comes down to one thing. That person is still under the illusion that smoking does something for them. The truth is, that smoking does nothing for a person but relieve a false anxiety that the previous cigarette created. As long as a person is under the illusion. There is going to be danger in their quit. 

So ask yourself. What did smoking do for you? If you miss it now, ask yourself why. If you quit for a good amount of time and went back to smoking. Ask yourself why. It isn't because life is too stressful now or you had a bad day or that you just wanted one. Those are just justifications that get the cigarette back to the lips. The reason is because the illusion that the cigarette does something for the smoker is still there. While I'm not going to condone alcohol or drugs. Think about this. Someone drinks alcohol. They become intoxicated. Someone smokes marijauna. They become stoned A smoker smokes a cigarette. What happens? They temporarily turn off the fight or flight mechanism that the previous cigarette created in the first place. That's it. 

Someone pointed out to me that cigarettes actually do something and that nicotine releases dopamine which gives the smoker a kind of high. While it is true that nicotine releases large amounts of dopamine, it is also important to understand that the brain has turned down it's own sensitivity to releasing dopamine, because of this. Meaning that the smoker is now relying a lot more on the cigarette to "feel good" or more accurately, feel "nicotine normal". The more a smoker smokes. The more that nothing seems to happen. Except that they temporarily get to feel that inner peace. The cruel trick though is that non smokers are already there.

Smokers have been performing this ritual for so long that they tend not to see this cruel trick. Even after they quit. Once a person truly understands that a cigarette does not relieve stress( it creates it), that it does not help them cope with their emotions during trying times ( it takes their focus off them), That it does not fill a void (it creates it). That it does absolutely nothing at all, but relieve a false anxiety that the previous cigarette created in the first place. Once the quitter truly understands this and believes this, they will realize that they are not depriving themselves of smoking, but freeing themselves from it. This will make the quit so much easier. 

Understand. You hate smoking. You hate smoking so much that you sought out a place that would help you quit smoking. You hate it so much that you voluntarily put yourself through withdrawal to break this cycle. After you quit though. Don't start thinking that you miss cigarettes or that you miss smoking. Don't start looking for solitude in the very thing you escaped from, because there is none. Nothing will change if you decide to smoke again. You hated it before you quit and you will hate it if you smoke again. The only thing that will change is that you were on the other side of the fence for a while. You tasted freedom and that only makes smoking taste that much more bitter. Don't give cigarettes any credit that they do something for you, because they don't. Maybe you occasionally think about that "one" cigarette. Don't forget though, about the tens of thousands of the other ones that put you on this board. Also don't forget, it one was cigarette that started this whole mess in the first place. There is no such thing as just one. Only the first one. KTQ, Bill D17