Now the Cravings Really Begin

Have been quiet lately as I had a major car-related problem -- it stopped working, and I had to get a new one, and all the travails associated with that. But now I have a new old one, and note this morning that it has a puncture, and I can't be bothered to jack it up at the moment.

Because I've given up smoking a few times, I'm always amazed by the blithe insistence of some quit sites - especially those biased towards the "cognitive quitting" - that the cravings soon pass, that they are no worse than the cravings you get when you want a cigarette while smoking, that the cravings diminish with time, and if you just never put that cigarette in your mouth, everything will be fine and dandy.

Now, while the last statement is true -- and, so far, I have resisted the one, just one -- I'm here to tell you that, for this quitter, months two, three and four are the hardest. The cravings I get from here on for the next couple of months aren't some little tug at the edges of my consciousness, like the desire for another cigarette when I was smoking, but in another league altogether. This desire is difficult to describe. But it is a real desire, made worse because it is thwarted, and not by improbability, like say, my desire for a million quid. It is a desire that could quite easily and simply be sated, but which I have to resist.

These cravings are not something that pass within two or three minutes, as many cognitive quitters insist, but something that can haunt me for fifteen to twenty minutes at a time, and sometimes longer, much, much longer.

The craving feels very physical. Located somewhere around the chest, but also spreading into my whole body and making me feel tired. A feeling of aching emptiness.

So wish me luck as I voyage into the next three months where it gets really, really, difficult.

One month, two weeks, 8 hours, 22 minutes and 21 seconds. 1330 cigarettes not smoked, saving £365.88. Life saved: 4 days, 14 hours, 50 minutes.