BOOK 3

Stop Smoking Systems
A Division of Bridge2Life Consultants

BOOK THREE
THE BENEFITS OF
QUITTING SMOKING

THE GOOD NEWS
ABOUT YOUR
NEW LIFE

INTRODUCTION

Hi, it’s Debbie again. This book contains the good news and the bad news. But it does give you a road map showing where you’ve been and where you’re headed. Do you have any friends or relatives who boasted something like this? “I smoked for forty years and never saw a day sick. Why I’m healthy as a horse and proud to call myself a smoker. I like my smokes and I never had one bad thing happen to me from smokin’!”

I did…I heard that all the time from my dad, right before he went in for lung repair surgery. And even after the surgery, he would never admit that cigarettes had affected his lungs in any way. The loyalty we feel to cigarettes baffles my mind to this day. Well, you and I know better don’t we. I said the same thing about myself all the time. Even when I woke up coughing, couldn’t laugh at a good joke without coughing, tried to climb stairs or had yet another case of the flu or pneumonia. I was steadfastly loyal to my ciggies. Well, not anymore. I will never so long as I live on this planet force another living soul to suck in my second hand smoke. I pray that my body will continue to remain healthy and that some of the ravages of the disease have been healed. I had a lung x-ray a few years back and the doctor marveled at how healthy my lungs were. Do you know what that means to a person who, 20 years ago was told that she was a sure candidate for lung cancer? And now, somehow the damage has reversed itself.

Anyway, really do read this book as well as the Knowledge Is Power book. You are bound to feel as I do that there is hope and that

IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO QUIT!!

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT SMOKING CESSATION.

HERE IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO LOOK
FORWARD TO

Ongoing Benefits of Quitting Smoking
20 Minutes after Quitting
Your blood pressure will drop to a level close to what it was before you had your last cigarette
Temperature of your feet and hands increases to a normal level
30 Minutes after Quitting
Your taste buds come back to life
Your sense of smell improves
2 to 12 Weeks after Quitting
Circulation improves
Your lung function increases by 30%
Instances of colds, flu and missed work should decrease
1 to 9 Months after Quitting
Shortness of breath and coughing decrease
Sinus congestion decreases
You have more energy and stamina
Cilia regain normal function in your lungs, increasing the ability to handle mucus, clean the lungs and reduce infection
Your appearance improves – you’ll have whiter teeth and fewer wrinkles
1 Year after Quitting
Risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker
5 Years after Quitting
Risk of stroke is greatly reduced (typically to the risk level of someone who has been nonsmoking 5 to 15 years
10 to15 Years after Quitting
Risk of coronary heart disease matches that of a nonsmoker
Quitting

Visualize all of the smoke that goes into the bottle that doesn’t come out. Also, remember that the smoker is not only going to smoke that one cigarette. He will probably smoke another within a half-hour. Then another after that. In fact, he will probably smoke 20, 40, 60 or even more cigarettes by the end of the day. And tomorrow will be the same. After looking at cigarettes like this, you don’t want to smoke a cigarette, do you?
I always suggest that clinic participants follow this simple visualization exercise to help them overcome the urge for a cigarette. When I suggested it to one participant who was off for three days she replied, “I see, you want me to brainwash myself so that I don’t want a cigarette.”
Somehow I don’t consider this technique of visualizing smoking brainwashing. It is not like the ex-smoker is being asked to view smoking in an artificially horrible, nightmarish manner. To the contrary, I am only asking the ex-smoker to view cigarette smoking in its true light.
The Palmolive bottle demonstration accurately portrays the actual amount of smoke that goes in as compared to the small amount that you see the smoker blow out. Most smokers believe they exhale the majority of smoke they inhale into their lungs. But, as you saw by the demonstrations, most of the smoke remains in the lungs. When you visualize all the smoke that remains, it does not paint a pretty picture of what is happening in the smoker. Maybe not a pretty picture, but an accurate one.
When an ex-smoker watches a person smoke a cigarette, he often fantasizes about how much the smoker is enjoying it–how good it must taste and make him feel. It is true he may be enjoying that particular cigarette, but the odds are he is not.
Most smokers enjoy a very small percentage of the cigarettes they smoke. In fact, they are really unaware of most of the cigarettes they smoke. Some are smoked out of simple habit, but most are smoked in order to alleviate withdrawal symptoms experienced by all smokers whose nicotine levels have fallen below minimal requirements. The cigarette may taste horrible, but the smoker has to smoke it. And because the majority of smokers are such addicts, they must smoke many such cigarettes every single day in order to maintain a constant blood nicotine level.
Don’t fantasize about cigarettes. Always keep a clear, objective perspective of what it would once again be like to be an addicted smoker. There is no doubt at all that if you relapse to smoking you will be under the control of a very powerful addiction. You will be spending hundreds of dollars a year for thousands of cigarettes. You will smell like cigarettes and be viewed as socially unacceptable in many circles. You will be inhaling thousands of poisons with every puff. These poisons will rob you of your endurance and your health. One day they may eventually rob you of your life.
Consider all these consequences of smoking. Then, when you watch a smoker you will feel pity for them, not envy. Consider the life he or she is living compared to the simpler, happier, and healthier life you have had since you broke free from your addiction. Consider all this and you will – NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF!

YOUR LUNGS WILL BEGIN TO HEAL VERY SOON!

THIS IS YOUR LUNG ON CIGARETTES

Cigarette tars contain some of the most carcinogenic chemicals known to man. Consider this when watching people smoking and exhaling only 10% of the tars they actually take in. Not only are these chemicals being painted into the lung, but smokers are also constantly painting them up on their lips, tongue, larynx, swallowing some and thus painting it in the esophagus and throughout the digestive tract. Smokers have increased incidents of cancer in all of these exposed sites.
Now that you know what it looks like on a large scale and feels like, lets take a look at the microscopic level of things that happen in the lung from smoking.
The following series of slides illustrate microscopic changes that happen when a person smokes. The first slide is showing an illustrated blow-up of the normal lining of the bronchus.

On the top we see the cilia, labeled (H). They are attached to columnar cells, labeled (I). The cilia sweep the mucous produced in the goblet cells, labeled (J) as well as mucous coming from deeper glands within the lungs and the particulate matter trapped in the mucous. The bottom layer of cells, labeled (L) are the basal cells.
Below we start to see the changes that occur as people begin to smoke. You will see that the columnar cells are starting to be crowded out and displaced by additional layers of basal cells. Not only are fewer cilia present but the ones that are still functioning are doing so at a much lower level of efficiency. Many chemicals in tobacco smoke are toxic to cilia, first slowing them down, soon paralyzing them all together and then destroying them.

As you see with the cilia actions being diminished, mucous starts to build up in the small airways making it harder for the smoker to breathe and causing the characteristic smokers cough in order to clear out the airways.
Eventually though, the ciliated columnar cells are totally displaced. As can be seen below ominous changes have taken place. Not only is the smoker more prone to infection from the loss of the cleansing mechanism of the cilia, but these abnormal cells (O) are cancerous squamous cells. These cells will eventually break through the basement membrane wall and invade into underlying lung tissue and often spread throughout the body long before the person even knows they have the disease.

If a smoker quits before cancer actually starts, even if the cells are in a precancerous state, the process is
highly reversible.
Cilia regeneration starts in about 3 days once smoking stops. Even if cilia has been destroyed and not present for years, the lining tissue of the windpipe will start to repair. Even the precancerous cells will be sloughed off over time, reversing the cellular process to the point where the lining tissue goes back to normal. But if a smoker waits too long and cancer starts, it may be too late to save his or her life.
Following are actual pathological slides showing these same damaging effects.

The little pink hairlike projections on the top is the cilia and if you compare this image with the illustrations above you should be able to see the mucous secreting cells and the separation of the lining tissue from the underlying lung tissue.
Below you can see the same area of tissue from a smoker’s lung who has totally destroyed the cilia in this tissue.

Again note, where there used to be two layers of well formed and organized basal cells, now numerous layers of disorganized squamous cells has replaced the normal defensive tissue. These cells are precancerous and if the continued irritation (cigarette smoke) is not ceased can go to that final stage where they become malignant and invade into the underlying lung tissue as seen below.

Then it is only a matter of time before it leaves the lung and spreads throughout the body.
If the smoker quits smoking before this last cellular change occurs,
before a cell turns malignant, the
process seen in this last slide can be avoided.

In fact much of the damage seen in the second picture here is highly reversible.
In three days
cilia start to regenerate and usually within 6 months the normal cilia function is returned. Also over time, the extra layers of cells will be sloughed off and the lining tissue of the bronchus will return to normal.
Unfortunately, if a smoker waits until a malignancy has started, the outlook is grim. The overall 5 year survival rate for lung cancer is only 14%. Lung cancer, is a disease that while once uncommon, is now the leading cancer killer in both sexes.
Cancer is actually many different diseases with many different causes. If we look at cancer trends over the last century we see some amazing changes. While cancer was always around, it was different sites that were primary problems. Lung cancer, at the turn of the century was almost unheard of. If a doctor saw a case he would have easily gotten it printed up in a medical journal. Now, it is the major cause of cancer death in our society, killing more men and women than any other site. The primary difference between now and then is smoking. Before the turn of the century smoking was a limited practice. A very small percentage of people smoked and even the ones who did smoked many fewer cigarettes. Cigarettes were not even mass produced till the very end of the 1900’s.
We always hear of a cancer epidemic, how more and more people die of cancer every year. Actually, if you pull the smoking related sites out of the equation, cancer deaths have been on a decline. Some sites, like stomach the incidence dropped dramatically, not fully understood as to why. Other sites, like breast, even though the morbidity rate (number of cases) didn’t drop, because we now have better treatments and earlier detection, the mortality (death) rate has dropped.
But the smoking cancers; lung, mouth, lip, tongue, throat, larynx, pancreas, esophagus, pharynx, urinary bladder have all seen marked increases over the 20th century. These cancers have gone from obscurity to some of the major causes of death in our country. Actually, for the first time in a hundred years we are starting to see an early decline of morbidity and mortality because we are seeing fewer smokers now with the drop in the percentages of adult smokers.
You see a dramatic difference in men and women, especially in lung cancer rates. The reason is women started smoking much later than men, about a 30 year time delay before it became socially acceptable for women to smoke. Male smoking rate jumped dramatically between World War I and another big boost during World War II. Free distribution of cigarettes to soldiers was a big factor. Women smoking rates happened much later and the time delay is reflected in the time delay in cancer and other diseases going up too.
The above pictures were primarily about how smoking causes cancer of the lung and other sites. But the assault on the lungs from the tars in tobacco are not just limited to causing cancer. Other lung diseases are directly caused by smoking, the most well known are the chronic obstructive lung diseases.
The most well known smoking induced COPD is emphysema. This is another one of those diseases that primarily happen to smokers. Over 90% of the cases are smoking induced. There are cases in some families where there does seem to be a genetic predisposition, where non-smokers get it too. This is from a rare condition, a lack of a blood enzyme called alpha1antitrypsin. This again is rare, but if you do have family members who never smoked a day in their life get emphysema there may be a genetic tendency. But again, over 90% of emphysema cases are simply caused by smoking. Eradicate smoking and you eradicate the risk of the disease.
To get a sense of how a long is altered by smoking to cause emphysema look at the pictures below. The first is a picture of an inflated non-smoker city dweller’s lung.

As in the normal picture of a lung above, you can see carbon deposits collected throughout from pollution effects. But when contrasted with a smoker’s lung with emphysema…
You see a dramatic difference in men and women, especially in lung cancer rates. The reason is women started smoking much later than men, about a 30 year time delay before it became socially acceptable for women to smoke. Male smoking rate jumped dramatically between World War I and another big boost during World War II. Free distribution of cigarettes to soldiers was a big factor. Women smoking rates happened much later and the time delay is reflected in the time delay in cancer and other diseases going up too.
The above pictures were primarily about how smoking causes cancer of the lung and other sites. But the assault on the lungs from the tars in tobacco are not just limited to causing cancer. Other lung diseases are directly caused by smoking, the most well known are the chronic obstructive lung diseases.
The most well known smoking induced COPD is emphysema. This is another one of those diseases that primarily happen to smokers. Over 90% of the cases are smoking induced. There are cases in some families where there does seem to be a genetic predisposition, where non-smokers get it too. This is from a rare condition, a lack of a blood enzyme called alpha1antitrypsin. This again is rare, but if you do have family members who never smoked a day in their life get emphysema there may be a genetic tendency. But again, over 90% of emphysema cases are simply caused by smoking. Eradicate smoking and you eradicate the risk of the disease.
To get a sense of how a long is altered by smoking to cause emphysema look at the pictures below. The first is a picture of an inflated non-smoker city dweller’s lung.

As in the normal picture of a lung above, you can see carbon deposits collected throughout from pollution effects. But when contrasted with a smoker’s lung with emphysema…

…there is a very dramatic visible difference. Not only is the discoloration the issue, but the lungs have literally been ripped out of shape making breathing extremely difficult and eventually impossible. To get a sense of what it feels like to breathe with emphysema take a deep breath and hold it. Without letting out any air, take another deep breath. Hold that one too. One more time, take one more breath. Okay let it all out.
That second or third breath is what it feels like to breathe when you have advanced emphysema. Emphysema is a disease where you cannot exhale air. Everyone thinks that it is a disease where you cannot inhale but in fact it is the opposite. When you smoke you destroy the lungs elasticity by destroying the tissue that pulls your lung back together after using muscles that allow us to inhale air. So when it comes time to take your next breath it is that much more difficult, for your lungs could not get back to their original shape.
Imagine going through life having to struggle to breathe like those last two breaths I had you take. Unfortunately, millions of people don’t have to imagine it, they live it daily. It is a miserable way to live and a slow painful way to die.
Hopefully when you breathe normally today you are not in pain and you are not on oxygen. If you don’t smoke you will continue to give yourself the ability to breathe longer and feel better. Never lose sight of this fact. To keep your ability to breathe better for the rest of your life always remember to – NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF!

Smoking and Circulation

While most people equate smoking deaths to cancer and lung disease, in fact many more people will die from circulatory conditions from smoking than die from cancer or other lung diseases. Also, in general, they will die at much younger ages from these problems. We would have many more lung cancers than we do if smokers could live long enough to get them. When many people with fatal heart attacks or strokes are autopsied, there are often precancerous lesions found that indicate that if these people had a few more years to live they would have eventually succumbed to these smoking induced diseases.
As for heart and other circulatory diseases, the two chemicals in cigarettes that stand out as the biggest problems are nicotine and carbon monoxide. Nicotine, besides being addictive, has very powerful effects on arteries throughout the body. Nicotine is a stimulant, speeding up the heart by about 20 beats per minute with every cigarette, it raises blood pressure, is a vasoconstrictor – which means it makes arteries all over the body become smaller making it harder for the heart to pump through the constricted arteries – and it causes the body to release its stores of fat and cholesterol into the blood.
The heart has to work harder to overcome all of these effects. To work harder the heart, like every other muscle in the body, needs extra amounts of oxygen for the additional workload. The oxygen has to be transported through the blood. But carbon monoxide from tobacco smoke literally poisons the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood. So this results in the heart having to work harder to get more blood to itself to work harder, because it’s working harder. This is a circle. A vicious and deadly circle when it comes down to it.
Below we see the cross section of a normal artery. Usually we have nice big openings in the artery to carry oxygen as well as all other nutrients to all the tissues of the body.

If you compare this artery to the one below…

… you can see the blood clotted, blocking the blood flow to whatever organ or tissue this artery was leading to. Without being able to get circulation, that tissue will literally suffocate in a matter of minutes and basically be left as useless tissue. Sometimes the artery involved is a coronary artery, one that supplies the heart with the blood it needs to function.
Below is a picture of a coronary artery attached to the heart…

If we look at a close up view of the artery…

… we see the blood clotted and blood flow to the section of the heart that this artery was supplying was cut off. What will result is that a portion of the heart muscle that was supposed to get that blood flow suffocates and dies within a matter of minutes.

Above we see infracted (dead) heart muscle (myocardial infarction). The tissue is literally brittle as illustrated by the cracking effect. Instead of being able to pump blood, this area whole section of muscle is no longer able to be utilized for its life sustaining function. Again, smokers get this much more often because of the effects of nicotine and carbon monoxide. Nicotine having all the direct effects on the heart itself, carbon monoxide robbing the oxygen supply, and both chemicals increasing clotting as well as clogging factors in the blood. If the section of the heart affected was larger enough the smoker would die from the first attack. Often smaller areas are affected and the patient can survive but has lost that specific section of the heart and may have permanent impairments from the now limited supply of heart tissue.
Cigarette smoking increases risks of blood clots significantly. If the blood clots in an artery and blood can no longer get through, the tissue that is supposed to be supplied with blood has lost the source of its oxygen and nutrients and dies in minutes. But clots are not the only way these arteries can be blocked. Another way is by clogs.
As opposed to clots where the blood actually coagulates and becomes an obstruction, clogs are where deposits of fat gradually build up. In the first picture below you can literally see the start of an artery getting a fat buildup.

Over time, this opening can get narrower and blood flow gets more and more impeded. This of course adds to the workload of the heart to pump through smaller arteries with increased resistance. But this clogging does not only happen to the coronary arteries, it literally happens all over the body. Remember, nicotine is not only a vasoconstrictor, making arteries go into constrictions every time it is administered, but it also causes the body to release its own stores of fat and cholesterol. Besides this, carbon monoxide has an effect that makes the fat stick to the arteries. The reason is carbon monoxide lowers the oxygen level of the blood (hypoxia) and hypoxia seems to have an effect making fat stick to artery walls.
Eventually over time arteries can become totally blocked with fat as seen in the slide below.

As in the case with a clot, blood cannot get through and the body part that was contingent on that blood supply for survival is lost. If this artery lead to your heart as in the case of the clotted coronary arteries above, the result would be a heart attack with a loss of heart muscle that if large enough would be fatal. But the heart is not the only organ affected this way. Another common site of problems are the arteries leading to the brain. Below is a picture of the base of a health human brain.

The arteries to the brain are very small here and clear, very difficult to see in fact. The arrows are pointing them out. To see them clearer here is a close up shot of these arteries…

Again note, these arteries are very thin and clear. Smoking increases the fat deposits to these arteries so often, instead of looking like this, they can look like the slide below…

With the fat build up the arteries are much easier to see. But this build up if complete cuts off circulation to your brain and as is the case with the heart, the part of the brain that no longer gets circulation dies. This is what happens in the case of a stroke. Circulation gets cut off from the brain either through a clog or a blood clot. The section of the brain that gets cut off suffocates and dies. If this part of your brain controlled speech, you will not talk anymore, if it controlled some form of motor function, these abilities will be lost and leave the patient impaired or crippled. If the section of the brain affected controlled some life sustaining function, the patient will die, again, within minutes of when the circulation cut off is complete.
The clogging and clotting effects of nicotine and carbon monoxide are the primary reasons why smokers are at such a higher risk of this condition. But this clogging/clotting effect is not limited to just major organs like the heart or brain. These chemicals affect arteries throughout the entire body. These affects may not be as deadly as cutting off circulation to the heart or brain, but in a real way they can show the true potential of the grip of the nicotine addiction.
Peripheral circulation, arteries going to the extremities are also highly susceptible to the vasoconstrictor effects of nicotine as well as the increase of clots and clogging risks posed by smoking. Smoking is a primary cause of much of the peripheral vascular disease seen as well as a powerful aggravating factor for people who have other preexisting conditions causing circulation problems to the extremities.

…there is a very dramatic visible difference. Not only is the discoloration the issue, but the lungs have literally been ripped out of shape making breathing extremely difficult and eventually impossible. To get a sense of what it feels like to breathe with emphysema take a deep breath and hold it. Without letting out any air, take another deep breath. Hold that one too. One more time, take one more breath. Okay let it all out.
That second or third breath is what it feels like to breathe when you have advanced emphysema. Emphysema is a disease where you cannot exhale air. Everyone thinks that it is a disease where you cannot inhale but in fact it is the opposite. When you smoke you destroy the lungs elasticity by destroying the tissue that pulls your lung back together after using muscles that allow us to inhale air. So when it comes time to take your next breath it is that much more difficult, for your lungs could not get back to their original shape.
Imagine going through life having to struggle to breathe like those last two breaths I had you take. Unfortunately, millions of people don’t have to imagine it, they live it daily. It is a miserable way to live and a slow painful way to die.
Hopefully when you breathe normally today you are not in pain and you are not on oxygen. If you don’t smoke you will continue to give yourself the ability to breathe longer and feel better.

Never lose sight of this fact. To keep your ability to breathe better for the rest of your life always remember to – NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF!
“Minimizing the Most Common Side Effects to Quitting Smoking”

Blood sugar plummets in many people when first quitting. The most common side effects felt during the first three days can often be traced back to blood sugar issues. Symptoms such as headache, inability to concentrate, dizziness, time perception distortions, and the ubiquitous sweet tooth encountered by many, are often associated with this blood sugar drop. The symptoms of low blood sugar are basically the same symptoms as not having enough oxygen, similar to reactions experienced at high altitudes. The reason being the inadequate supply of sugar and/or oxygen means the brain is getting an incomplete fuel. If you have plenty of one and not enough of the other, your brain can not function at any form of optimal level. When you quit smoking, oxygen levels are often better than they have been in years, but with a limited supply of sugar it can’t properly fuel your brain.
It is not that cigarettes put sugar into your blood stream; it is more of a drug interaction of the stimulant effect of nicotine that affects the blood sugar levels. Cigarettes cause the body to release its own stores of sugar and fat by a drug type of interaction. That is how it basically operated as an appetite suppressant, affecting the satiety centers of your hypothalamus. As far as for the sugar levels, nicotine in fact works much more efficiently than food. If you use food to elevate blood sugar levels, it literally takes up to 20 minutes from the time you chew and swallow the food before it is released to the blood, and thus the brain, for its desired effect of fueling your brain. Cigarettes, by working through a drug interaction causes the body to release it’s own stores of sugar, but not in 20 minutes but usually in a matter of seconds. In a sense, your body has not had to release sugar on its own in years, you have done it by using nicotine’s drug effect !
This is where many people really gorge themselves on food upon cessation. They start to experience a drop in blood sugar and instinctively reach for something sweet. Upon finishing the food, they still feel symptomatic. Of course they do, it takes them a minute or two to eat, but the blood sugar isn’t boosted for another 18 minutes. Since they are not feeling immediately better, they eat a little more. They continue to consume more and more food, minute after minute until they finally they start to feel better. Again if they are waiting for the blood sugar to go up we are talking about 20 minutes after the first swallow. People can eat a lot of food in 20 minutes. But they begin to believe that this was the amount needed before feeling better. This can be repeated numerous times throughout the day thus causing a lot of calories being consumed and causing weight gain to become a real risk.
When you abruptly quit smoking, the body is in kind of a state of loss, not knowing how to work normally since it has not worked normally in such a long time. Usually by the third day, though, your body will readjust and release sugar as it is needed. Without eating any more your body will just figure out how to regulate blood sugar more efficiently.
You may find though that you do have to change dietary patterns to one that is more normal for you. Normal is not what it was as a smoker, but more what it was before you took up smoking with aging thrown in. Some people go until evening without eating while they are smokers. If they try the same routine as ex-smokers they will suffer side effects of low blood sugar. It is not that there is something wrong with them now, they were abnormal before for all practical purposes. This doesn’t mean they should eat more food, but it may mean they need to redistribute the food eaten to a more spread out pattern so they are getting blood sugar doses throughout the day as nature really had always intended.
To minimize some of the real low blood sugar effects of the first few days it really can help to keep drinking juice throughout the day. After the fourth day though, this should no longer be necessary as your body should be able to release sugar stores if your diet is normalized. If you are having problems that are indicative of blood sugar issues beyond day three, it wouldn’t hurt talking to your doctor and maybe getting some nutritional counseling in order to allow your body to maintain permanent control over the amount of glucose (sugar) in your brain.
The Recovery Process
Successful nicotine dependency recovery is in maintaining the motivations, dreams and patience needed to allow: (1) the physical mind time to re-sensitize itself and re-adjust to functioning normally again; (2) the subconscious mind time to encounter and re-condition the bulk of its nicotine feeding cues that triggered brief anxiety episodes in an attempt to gain compliance; and (3) the conscious mind time to either allow years of defensive dependency rationalizations to fade into distant memory, or the intelligent quitter time to more rapidly destroy their impact through honest reflection.
The ex-smoker will find themselves enjoying a deep and rich sense of inner quiet, calmness, and tranquility once their temporary journey of readjustment is substantially complete.
The body’s nicotine reserves decline by about half every two hours. It’s not only the basic chemical half-life clock which determines mandatory nicotine feeding times, when quitting it’s also the clock that determines how long it takes before the brain begins bathing in nicotine free bloodserum, the moment that real healing begins.
It can take up to 72 hours for the blood-serum to become nicotine-free and 90% of nicotine’s metabolites to exit the body via your urine. It’s then that the anxieties associated with readjustment normally peak in intensity and begin to gradually decline.
But just one powerful “hit” of nicotine and you’ll again face another 72 hours of detox anxieties. It’s why the one puff survival rate is almost zero. None of us are stronger than nicotine but then we don’t need to be as it is simply a chemical with an I.Q. of zero. It does not plot, plan or conspire and is not some demon within us. Our most effective weapon against it is, and always has been, our vastly superior intelligence but only if put to work.

Nicotine Replacement Products
The key to nicotine dependency recovery is not in dragging out the 72 hours of detox by toying for weeks or months with gradual nicotine weaning or other creative means for delivering nicotine. The nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) industry want smokers to believe that a natural poison is medicine, that its use is therapy, and that it is somehow different from the tobacco plant’s nicotine molecule. The truth is that the pharmaceutical industry buys its nicotiana from the exact same growers as the tobacco industry. They want you to believe that double-blind placebo controlled studies proved that NRT doubles a cold turkey quitters odds of quitting and that only superheroes can quit without it. The truth is that their studies were not blind as claimed, and that all but a tiny sliver of earth’s successful quitters are quitting entirely on their own. Here are a few facts that those selling creative nicotine delivery devices would rather you not know:
Nicotine is a psychoactive drug whose “high” provides a dopamine “aaahhh” sensation and an adrenaline rush. Would you have been able to tell, within 5 minutes, whether the gum or lozenge you’d been given contained the nicotine equilivent of smoking two cigarettes or was instead a nicotine-free placebo? So could they. A 2004 study found that NRT studies suffered from massive wide-spread blinding failures (May 2004)
A nicotine smoker’s natural odds of quitting for six months, entirely on their own, without any products, procedures, education programs, counseling or formal support is roughly 10% (June 2000)
Those using the over-the-counter (OTC) nicotine patch or gum as a stand-alone quitting tool have only a 7% chance of quitting smoking for six months (March 2003)
Up to 7% of OTC nicotine gum quitters are still chronic users of nicotine gum at six months (May 2004). Question: isn’t 7 minus 7 still zero? (May 2004)
36.6% of all current nicotine gum users are chronic long-term users (May 2004)
You truly would have to be a superhero to quit while using the nicotine patch if you’ve already attempted using it once and relapsed. The only two patch user “recycling” studies ever conducted have both shown that nearly 100% of second-time nicotine patch users relapse to smoking nicotine within six months (April 1993 and August 1995, see Table 3)
91.2% of all successful long-term ex-smokers quit entirely on their own without resort to any product, procedure or program of any kind including hypnosis, Zyban, Wellbutrin, acupuncture, magic herbs, laser therapy, or the nicotine patch, gum, lozenge, spray, or inhaler (ACS 2003)
Education, understanding, new skills and serious support can more than triple your natural six-month odds of 10% (April 2003)
Those who refuse to allow any nicotine back into
their bloodstream have
100% odds of remaining nicotine free today!
(Today, Tomorrow & Always!)
Education Destroys Dependency
Ignorance
Is encountering your subconsciously conditioned nicotine feeding cue (times, places, events, emotions) that are in need of reconditioning a bad thing? Are almost all cues reconditioned and broken by a single victory in not providing the demanded substance? Is time distortion a normal recovery symptom? Do all subconscious crave episodes last less than three minutes? Can distortion make the minutes feel like hours? Can looking at a clock bring honest perspective? Does the number of episodes peak at an average of six on day three and decline to just 1.2 crave episodes per day by day 10?
If “average,” can you handle up to 18 minutes of serious anxiety (3 minutes x 6 episodes)? If you have established twice as many nicotine feeding cues as the average smoker can you handle up to 36 minutes of challenge on your most challenging day of recovery?
Does nicotine really double the rate at which caffeine is metabolized? Will your caffeine blood-serum level really increase by 203% if you drink the exact same amount of caffeine after ending all nicotine use? If you are a heavy caffeine user can elevated levels of caffeine cause additional anxieties making nicotine dependency recovery harder than need be?
Why could you skip breakfast and even lunch when smoking nicotine and never feel true hunger pains? Can difficulty concentrating during early recovery, and other low blood sugar type symptoms, often be easily corrected by simply learning that nicotine is no longer your spoon feeding you stored fats and sugars, and that you must again learn to properly fuel your body

(72 hours) drinking natural acidic fruit juices like cranberry help to both stabilize blood sugar and accelerate depletion of your
body’s reserves of the alkaloid nicotine?
The next few minutes are all that matter and each is entirely doable. It may not always be easy but it is simple.
There was always only one rule:
no nicotine today!

Smoking multiplies the effect of other risk factors for CAD like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. Men who smoke have a 60%-70% greater death rate than those who don’t. Sudden death may be the first manifestation of CAD in young male smokers. Women smokers have a 10 times increased risk of developing CAD than non-smokers.
Low tar cigarettes and smokeless tobacco are not effective substitutes for discontinuing the use of tobacco products.

Passive smoking in those who have never smoked increases the risk of CAD.
Smoking cessation produces immediate and long-term benefits. There is a substantial decrease in the risk of a heart attack within 1 year of stopping smoking. Those who quit smoking prior to the age of 50 have half the risk of dying in the next 15 years compared to continuing smokers.
BUT

WHAT ABOUT THE CRAVINGS? THEY SEEM LIKE THEY GO ON FOREVER DON’T THEY?

WELL, HERE’S THE TRUTH
ABOUT CRAVINGS IN A HANDY
CHART

Can you handle 18 minutes of substantial anxiety (6 craves x 3 minutes)? Without a doubt! We all can. But what if you are not normal and have somehow established twice as many conditioned subconscious feeding cues as the average nicotine addict? Could you handle 12 crave episodes and up to 36 minutes of panic type anxiety on your most challenging day of your temporary period of re-adjustment called quitting? Absolutely!
Why Prior Attempts Failed –
A permanent successful recovery is not nearly as dependent upon “planning” as it is upon “learning.” None of our prior attempts failed because we selected the wrong recovery commencement date. They failed because we failed to understand and master the principles underlying our addiction. It doesn’t take brute strength or raw courage to quit for the up to 72 hours that may be necessary for our body to become 100% nicotine clean, for 90% of nicotine’s metabolites to pass via our urine, and withdrawal to normally peak in intensity.
Instead, it takes dreams, desires and a bit of dependency understanding.
AS ODD AS IT SEEMS, ONE OF OUR
MOST EXCITING POINTS OF RECOVERY
IS THAT WE ARE NO LONGER TRASHING THE WORLD WITH OUR DISEASE! Mother Earth is Not an Ashtray
Is mother earth being rained upon by over two billion new cigarette butts each day? Although accurate butt facts are rare, that’s an average of less than two cigarette butts daily from each of earth’s 1.2 billion smokers. Look closely at the ground at any intersection. They’re everywhere!
Are cigarette butts litter? Absolutely! But unlike paper products they’re not biodegradable. Nearly all cigarette filters are composed of a bundle of 12,000 plastic-like cellulose acetate fibers. It can take years, in some cases up to fifteen, for the fibers to decay into a plastic powder that can’t be seen. As they do their deadly cargo is released.
The nicotine trapped inside 200 used filters is sufficient to kill an adult human – 50 to 60 milligrams. Imagine a month without rain followed by a brief thunderstorm that washes hundreds of thousands of nicotine laden white and brown canoes – enough to kill 2,500 humans – into area creeks and streams. Aquatic life at the bottom of the food chain can pay a deadly price but so do the birds and fish who mistake them for food. Nicotine isn’t the only villain as trapped tars and toxic gases leach into waterways too.
Tar refers to the more than three thousand five hundred chemical particles and five hundred gases generated by each burning cigarette that include arsenic, vinyl chloride, acetone, mercury and lead. Modern filters trap roughly half the tar while capturing one-third of a cigarette’s formaldehyde and two-thirds of its hydrogen cyanide. Pick up a few dozen butts and take a big whiff. Smell the scent of bitter almonds? That’s hydrogen cyanide.
It’s sad that those chemically dependent upon regular nicotine feedings daily punish the environment with their not so empty empties, but it isn’t all their fault. Although roughly 80% of all littered items along the three miles of highway roadside that I maintain are cigarette butts or their packaging, law enforcement officers have historically ignored those flicking lit butts. But why?
Imagine being a police officer and chemically dependent upon nicotine yourself, working with scores of smoking officers who daily violate criminal litter laws, or living with nicotine dependent family members who litter butts themselves. Who would you cite or arrest first?
The entire world turns its collective head while mother earth serves as one big ashtray for over 700 billion new littered butts each year. What message does such contempt for the land and laws send to our children? We need to either enforce our litter laws or repeal them.
It takes only seconds to field strip and pocket a used filter. I challenge all current and former smokers to help clean up our mess. Neither society nor the environment deserve to live with our old butts for years to come. If you do adopt a small section of roadway, be sure to wear a glove and try not to breathe the fumes rising from your bucket or bag. Let’s each become just a little litter bitter. Together we can make a difference!
AND FINALLY

LET’S JUST DEAL WITH THIS ISSUE OF WITHDRAWALS
ON ALL FRONTS!!!!!!

HERE IT IS..
ALL THE INFORMATION YOU NEED TO PREPARE FOR
WITHDRAWALS
Nicotine Withdrawal and Recovery Symptoms
The Effects of Nicotine Cessation

WARNING: The below information is NOT MEDICAL ADVICE and you should IMMEDIATELY CONSULT YOUR PHYSICIAN should you experience ANY condition or symptom that causes YOU concern or alarm, including continuing depression. Although we’re pretty safe in blaming withdrawal for almost all the effects we feel during the first three days, we need to pay close attention to what our body is telling us and give your doctor a call if at all concerned.
The below symptom information was complied by a nicotine cessation counselor who is not a physician. The information provided is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor. Do not rely upon any information to replace individual consultations with your physician or other qualified health care provider.

We are Nicotine Addicts!
– Recovery is a temporary journey of readjustment during which the mind and body are allowed to undergo an amazing healing process. It’s a period when the brain is permitted to physically re-sensitize neuronal pathways to again functioning without nicotine, when the primitive subconscious mind is granted time to encounter and break free of dependency conditioning, and when the conscious thinking mind is given the opportunity to adapt to the physical changes, cope with re-conditioning, and transverse years of dependency rationalizations so as to arrive at a day when “you” can again comfortably engage all aspects of life without a physical, subconscious or conscious need for nicotine.
Although we should expect anxiety producing bumps in the road, with each passing day you’ll experience fewer and fewer thoughts of wanting to smoke. Recovery is the period when deeply ingrained psychological nicotine feeding cues fathered by true chemical dependency are broken. It’s a matter of staying prepared, as a few such cues may be seasonal, mood related or associated with infrequent activities or events.
Whether nicotine dependency was established and/or maintained by being smoked, chewed, inhaled, drank, snuffed, sprayed, swallowed, sucked, licked or patched, in the end there is only one way out – no more nicotine.
Every recovery is different. The number and intensity of effects noticed or felt during recovery varies from person to person, and even between each person’s own cessation experiences. Many are surprised to find that they experience almost no symptoms at all while others are confronted with multiple symptoms. The number and types of particular feeding cues selected and formed by endless compliance with the mind’s chemical demand for nicotine refueling also cause each person’s recovery experience to be almost unique.
By understanding some of the symptoms and effects it may be possible, in some instances, to minimize their impact by thought or action. Removing the mystery associated with the sequencing and timing of withdrawal and recovery will hopefully make you feel like you have your very own roadmap to the rich sense of comfort and calmness.
We didn’t suck tissue destroying tar composed of over 4,000 chemicals including ammonia, formaldehyde, arsenic, butane, hydrogen cyanide, lead, mercury, vinyl chloride, methane or vast quantities of carbon monoxide into our body because we wanted to watch each puff destroy a bit more of our capacity to receive and circulate life-giving oxygen. We did so to get to the nicotine.
Is it time to end our own self-destruction?
Nicotine is a colorless, odorless, organic-based alkaloid in the same family as cocaine, morphine, quinine and strychnine. Drop for drop it is more deadly than either arsenic or strychnine.
Although cocaine and heroin both produce powerfully intoxicating illegal highs, governments, experts and studies now tell us that neither is as effective at creating chemical ” dependency” as nicotine and its alert dopamine/adrenaline intoxication.
The one-year success rate for those who go through heroin withdrawal is about
20%, whereas with nicotine it’s only 5 to 10%. Except for the type of high experienced and the fact that our stimulant is legal, we truly are drug addicts, just as much as the addicts that fill jails and prisons around the globe. In 1998 tobacco killed 25 times more Americans than all illegal drugs combined (418,690 to 16,926 – U.S. Center for Disease Control).
Don’t Talk Yourself Into Having Symptoms – If you have a toothache at the same time you have a headache, the one that will receive the most attention and focus is the one generating the greatest pain or the most discomfort. As soon as the discomfort from your primary concern falls below that of your secondary concern your focus will immediately change to the other. We do the same type of primary/secondary focusing with the effects of withdrawal and the phases of recovery. Sometimes we don’t even notice a particular symptom until the discomfort of a prior one subsides.
Although the intensity of each remaining effect may be far less significant than the one that preceded it, the mind of the drug addict is looking for any excuse to relapse. After
the dramatic reduction in overall symptoms and effects experienced within the first 72 hours, recovery remains continuous yet at times may be so gradual that – like trying to watch a rose bud open – it almost becomes impossible to notice change.
Yet, amazingly, within just 2 to 4 months the adjustment process
transports most in recovery to a
point where they experience that very first day where they never once
“think” to themselves, “gee, I’d sure like a smoke!”
After the first such day they become more and more common. Soon, they become your new norm in life with the distance between the occasional “thought” growing further and further apart.
Imagine entire days, weeks, months and possibly even years, where your mind never once “wants” to smoke.
Imagine living in a constant state of 100% total comfort with no smoking related anxieties whatsoever – none, zero, nil, complete and total tranquility.
It’s where hundreds of millions of comfortable ex-smokers reside today.
Were any of them truly stronger than nicotine? Were any of them stronger than you or was that just another lame excuse?
Breaking free doesn’t take muscle or mountains of willpower. It takes dreams and honest reasons for wanting those dreams that are kept vivid, remembered, alive, and in the front-seat of your mind. It takes study, understanding, patience, an appreciation for the true power of nicotine, and a bit of love of self or at least a wee bit of “like”. It takes following only simple rule – just one day at a time, no nicotine in any form, Never Take Another Puff, Dip, or Chew.
A Recovery Testimonial!
Upon arresting my thirty-year and three pack-a-day dependency upon nicotine, my recovery evolved to the point of substantial comfort by about eight weeks, a few weeks earlier than most but later than some. It was then that I experienced my last major subconscious crave episode and started to notice that the once steady stream of thoughts of wanting were ever so slowly becoming fewer, shorter and generally less intense.
During the first few weeks I worked hard to maintain a strong positive attitude while refusing to allow negative thoughts to infect my thinking and dreams. While feeding myself large doses of positive thought I also confronted and analyzed those remaining thoughts that seemed to keep inviting relapse. Soon, it was no longer a matter of trying to believe what I was telling myself. I did believe in the new nicotine-free me!
Although at times intense, I did my best to remain focused on the long overdue healing occurring inside this body. I saw each and every day as a full and complete victory in and of itself. Today I was free and today I continued to heal! The little gifts along the way – the smells, tastes, energy, extra pocket change, the whiteness emerging in the smile, pride, empty pockets, a bit bigger step, odorless fingers, hope, endurance, an ashless world, new found time, long overdue self-respect, gradually lengthening periods of comfort, freedom and even the few extra pounds – was simply me coming home to meet me.
I encourage you not to fight your recovery but to find joy in it. Welcome each crave and thought, and embrace them as a very necessary part of this amazing temporary journey of re-adjustment. It’s nice never having to quit again. Our prior attempts failed because we lacked understanding but not this time. Our eyes and minds are open and this time we’re going the distance, headed home to again reside inside a quiet mind and to again meet the real “us”!
The problem with symptom lists, such as this, is that simply by reading them we tend to lead our minds to look for and expect symptoms to occur. In fact, mental expectations are capable of generating mental symptoms. This phenomenon – known as psychological overlay – is very real. Most starting home do NOT experience the majority of the symptoms listed below.
They are shown here only to educate, allay unnecessary concerns and/or to satisfy curiosity.
Do not sell your mind on the belief that starting your new life needs to be painful or intense.
If you relax, maintain a positive attitude, keep your reasons for wanting to break free in the forefront of your mind, abandon the unrealistic victory standard of “quitting forever” and instead focus on only the next hour, challenge or day
(there is no need to see yourself eating the entire elephant when one bite at a time is plenty), drink plenty of fruit juice for the first three days to keep your blood sugar level, don’t skip meals, reduce your caffeine intake by roughly half if you’re a big caffeine user, this adventure toward meeting the nicotine-free and comfortable you may turn out to be the most enjoyable and deeply satisfying experience of your entire life — even if challenged now and then.
We are what we think. If you think recovery will be difficult then it why shouldn’t it be? If you believe that the healing happening inside that body is utterly amazing
then it is. If you keep thinking you will fail then chances are you will. If you believe that no force or circumstance on his planet can stop your quest for freedom then
nothing can. Victory is in the mind.
The Effects of Physical Withdrawal

Anxiety, Anger, Irritability, Impatience and Restlessness,
The above are all normal temporary effects of physical withdrawal from nicotine. Our life long roller coaster cycles of rising and falling blood nicotine levels are now ending. Your mind is in the process of resuming control of the more than 200 neurochemicals that nicotine had directly and indirectly taken hostage, including select adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin pathways. In resuming control the brain is making sensitivity adjustments associated with mood, reward, stimulation and anxiety. In trying to protect your mind from the deadly pesticide nicotine it actually desensitize important neurochemical circuits by reducing receptor sites and diminishing the number of transporters.
If a nicotine user remains 100% nicotine free for just 72 hours they’ll likely begin to notice the underlying current of recovery anxieties begin easing off as their brain’s neurons begin bathing in nicotine-free oxygen rich blood serum and the brain’s sensitivity adjustments begin bearing fruit. Although our quickly healing body is now 100% nicotine free and most of the normal symptoms of adjustment have reached their peak, it will take 10 days to two weeks before our mind and body become fully accustomed to functioning with the absence of nicotine and many of the other 4,000+ chemicals present in each burning cigarette.
The early healing is rapid. Deep breathing with mind relaxation, together with a bit of physical activity, can help diminish anxieties. Adjustment of caffeine intake and limiting sugars can also have a calming effect. Acidic fruit juices, like cranberry, may help accelerate extraction of the blood’s remaining nicotine and decease the maximum of 72 hours required for the body to completely metabolize all nicotine.
There is a detailed cessation effects study by Marcia M. Ward, entitled “Selfreported abstinence effects in the first month after smoking cessation,” published in Addictive Behaviors, 26 (2001) at pages 311-327. Its findings are fascinating. For example, it may be difficult to believe but, on average, anxieties peak on day one (within 24 hours) and within two weeks return almost to pre-cessation levels. Regarding anxiety, be sure you understand why ex-smokers only need half the amount of caffeine as smokers ( discussion link ). Irritability, often anxiety’s aftermath, seems to peak at about 48 hours while restlessness peaks at 72 hours. According to the study, both begin hovering back around pre-cessation levels within two weeks.
Anger apparently peaks for the average quitter at about 48 hours (day 2) and within 72 hours is beginning to return to almost pre-cessation levels. Nicotine amazingly had taken command of the mind’s adrenaline circuitry and when taking back control anger and fear (fight or flight) are our means of releasing adrenaline. It isn’t unusual to find yourself intentionally attempting to induce releases by promoting conflict or feeling fearful about permanently altering your mind’s sense of normal from “nicotine normal” back to “you!”
Find ways to vent your frustrations that won’t cause needless hurt to family members, loved ones, friends or co-workers. Walk, run, vent into a pillow, find a punching bag, bend a piece of steel, or even bite your lip for the few hours (less than 72) that it will take before you begin to sense the onset of some relief. Talk about your feelings with family, friends or in your support group. Write yourself a loving letter to be read in a year from now that accurately describes what your chemical withdrawal and early psychological recovery experience was like and why you were more than willing to endure it. The mind does not remember pain or the bad times. In fact, your memories of “Glory Week” will rapidly fade within just a few short weeks. Give yourself the present gift of future memory. It may be just the motivation that you’ll need to avoid temptation tomorrow.
Occupy your time. Try enjoying your favorite activity, sport or hobby. Celebrate each hour of freedom. Keep a positive attitude and review your reasons for beginning this journey. Clear your mind of all negative thoughts and chatter. Don’t allow the seeds of false reasoning to fester and infect your logic or desire.
Show yourself courage as you break free from years of slavery to the dictates of your master.
Time Perception Distortion
Nicotine smokers have long known that at times during early withdrawal time itself seems almost to stand still. The first two weeks can seem like some of the longest days of your entire life. A new 2003 study suggests that time perception distortion may possibly be a universal nicotine dependency recovery symptom experienced by all smokers.
Although a subconsciously triggered crave episode will not last longer than three minutes, as you probably already know those minutes can feel like hours. Whether dealing with a subconscious crave trigger or even consciously fixating on a thought of wanting to smoke, be sure and look at a clock or watch so that you can gain honest perspective in helping correct your impaired perception of time.
All of us are capable of handling a few brief moments of anxiety – all of us – but we need help in gaining an accurate estimation of how long we’ve endured any challenge or this symptom may falsely paint recovery as being beyond our ability to handle. Don’t let time distortion deprive you of your dream of again comfortably embracing life as you.
When time distortion is combined with a destructive “big bite” recovery philosophy that insists upon measuring success in terms of quitting forever, it is often a recipe for relapse. Instead, adopt a ” one day at a time ” philosophy that sees and treats each challenge and each day of freedom and healing as the full and complete victory they reflect. What good is holding a victory party after you’re dead? Celebrate life and the victory your latest victory.
Inability to Concentrate or a Foggy Mind
The feeling that your concentration is not as good or that your mind now lives in a fog is experienced, to one degree or another, by almost two-thirds of recovering nicotine addicts. The return of our clearness of mind and concentration levels may seem gradual but within two weeks most begin experiencing concentration levels very close to those of never-smokers.
Poor concentration, focus and thought can also be associated with low blood sugar. It’s important to understand that nicotine force-fed us stored fats and sugars with each new puff. It’s why so many of us could skip breakfast and/or lunch and yet not feel hungry. Smoking nicotine caused our brain to release adrenaline which in turn prepared us for the “fight or flight mode” by pumping stored fats and sugars into our blood stream (the bad artery clogging fats).
Once we stop putting nicotine into our body the adrenaline fat feedings end. If you continue to attempt skipping meals, your blood sugar will plummet along with your concentration, as nicotine is no longer your spoon. It isn’t necessary to eat more food but only to spread your normal daily food intake out more evenly over your entire day. Women would be well advised to put a very small amount of fuel into their stomach about every three hours and men at least every five. During only the first 72 hours (as it can be fattening) natural fruit juices (cranberry is excellent) will not only aid with helping stabilize blood sugar but may actually help accelerate the rate at which nicotine metabolizes just a wee bit. Here is a good discussion thread on the subject.
Even if you can’t correct the entire problem by stabilizing blood sugar and you’re forced to push yourself a bit more than normal in order to live up to your old expectations, concentration improvement appears to be fairly steady and relief won’t be long in coming. You may also want to temporarily reduce or avoid alcohol use, which reduces brain oxygen, and obviously impairs concentration. Brisk walks or other physical exercise and slow deep breathing will deliver additional focus giving oxygen to your mind. Remember, life-giving oxygen is a far healthier brain stimulant than any addictive substance. Trust in you. It’s only temporary.
Flash – a new medical study was released in May 2002 indicating that heavy nicotine use may actually destroy brain cells and diminish concentration and memory. Here is a BBC news link and a link to the study abstract. If true, the very temporary concentration effects associated with adjusting to the absence of nicotine might better be seen as a very welcome occurrence.
Feeling Tired or Fatigued
Our body is shedding the effects of being under years of dependence upon a powerful stimulant and the process of withdrawal and readjustment can be physically and emotionally exhausting. We’re also experiencing changes in basic metabolism as our heart rate and respiration have rapidly returned to normal. Time distortion, awaiting that next crave episode, using anger or fear to try and generate adrenaline that we sense is missing, possible sleep disruption, it isn’t at all unusual to feel a bit drained during the first few days but after that you should begin feeling much better with more energy than you may have felt in years.
Just as recovering from any other illness, the body and mind need time to heal. Moderate exercise can act as a natural pick-me-up and also help us sleep better. We need to allow ourselves additional rest, extended sleep or even a nap. “Glory Week” consumes tremendous energy.
It is not normal to continue feeling tired or fatigued three weeks after starting your journey and there are many potential causes ranging from improper diet, blood sugar problems, medications in need of possible adjustment after ending the use of the 4,000+ chemicals present in tobacco smoke (including nicotine), an underlying condition that was being masked and hidden by those same 4,000 chemicals, or by other coincidental conditions that just happened to occur and have nothing whatsoever to do with ending tobacco or nicotine use. Also, see depression below.
Trouble Sleeping or Insomnia
Nicotine is a powerful drug that affects subconscious thought, brain waves, the depth of sleep, and can even affect dreams. The disturbance of “normal” sleep patterns can occur during physical withdrawal or new patterns may be established as you return to your body’s true level of need. You may find that you don’t need nearly as much sleep as you did while smoking. Are you still tired or just sleeping less?
It’s important to understand that nicotine smokers need twice the amount of caffeine in order to achieve the same effect as a non-smoker. Nicotine indirectly causes caffeine to metabolize (to be depleted) at a rate twice that of nonsmokers. If you’re a heavy caffeine user who attempts to continue using caffeine at the same amount as you did while using nicotine, you may find yourself not only having difficulty sleeping but probably climbing every wall in sight. Here’s a Freedom message thread discussing the issue in far more depth.
Relaxation through mind clearing and slow deliberate breathing can help induce sleep. Mental relaxation can be as simple as slowly clearing your mind of all other thoughts by focusing exclusively on a single object or color. If your sleep continues to be disrupted and is affecting your health, safety or performance then turn to your physician or pharmacist for assistance. Don’t allow sleep to be your mind’s junkie excuse to destroy your quest to meet and become comfortable as “you” again.
Chest Tightness
Chest tightness is normal, temporary and should not last for more than a few days. Aside from arising from the tension and stress associated with early withdrawal, it can be a component of normal postpartum nicotine blues or be associated with the early cleansing, coughing and lung healing. Any tension or depression induced tightness or muscle stiffness may benefit form relaxation exercises, a warm shower, slow deliberate breathing or moderate exercise. Fluid or ice water may help with minor discomfort associated with tar and mucus removal or irritation due to coughing. Keep in mind that your lungs need moisture to help with healing and flushing.
As a general rule of thumb, normal daily fluid intake should equal a minimum of one-half your body weight in ounces daily. A cool glass of water may not only taste refreshing it may stimulate a small earned release of dopamine — that ahhhh sensation. Add in a few deep deep ahhhh breaths and you may just begin to sense the beauty of the gradually emerging “you” as neurochemical sensitivity and control again is regulated by life not nicotine. If we have any concerns about chest tightness, it never hurts to pick up the phone and give our doctor a call.
Slight Sore Throat
Years and years of smoking while ingesting hundreds and hundreds of chemicals (every twenty to thirty minutes) has irritated our throat, damaged or destroyed millions of cells, has deeply marinated tissues in gobs of tar, and has caused them to become numbed to the tremendous harm being inflicted. As our tissues begin to heal, they may feel temporarily irritated as the cells slowly renew, our tissues begin to breathe and natural moisture levels gradually return. Cool liquids and juices may provide a bit of soothing. Hard sugarless candy or cough drops may also generate moisture, provide soothing or give relief from minor discomfort.

Coughing, Mucus or Nasal Drip
According to the Ward “abstinence effects: study, roughly 60% in recovery reported coughing on day two, 48% by day seven, 33% by day fourteen, and 15% by day twenty-eight. I hope that those still coughing after a month made an appointment to go for a thorough check-up! Our bronchial brushes or cilia are healing and again engaging in cleaning and clearing. Years of tar build-up is loosening itself and must either be expelled or flushed from the lungs. Mucus and coughing are common but as seen from the Ward study many in recovery often experience neither. If you do experience increased coughing that persists, it is highly advisable to see your physician for a complete checked-up as one of the earliest signs of lung cancer or disease is a chronic cough.
Clearly our lungs will benefit from extra fluids to aid with cleansing and healing. Although the 8 x 8 rule is under attack in some literature, many authorities still advocate trying to drink at least eight glasses of water daily. Try ice to sooth and moisten the mouth and possibly lemon for flavoring and a bit more valuable nicotine extracting acid. Cough syrups or decongestants can also bring some temporary relief from coughing or irritation but if your cough should persist don’t hesitate to give your doctor a call. It isn’t uncommon to see a smoker’s lung function improve by almost a third within just 90 days. That’s an amazing pace. I couldn’t run 200 feet prior to quitting and truly thought I would never would again. Not too far but today these lungs can run like the wind and amazingly not be winded when I stop. I thought I’d damaged them beyond repair. I’m so glad I was wrong.
Bad Breath, Nasty Tastes and Bleeding Gums
Are you noticing the horrible odors rising up from healing lungs as they exhale, cough and flush years of tar buildup within notice of healing taste buds and a more accurate sense of smell? Picturing the slow healing of deeply marinated gum, cheek and tongue tissues impregnated by years of thousands of passing chemicals may be more accurate than you think. Depending on how long we smoked it could take some time for these tastes and odors to totally dissipate. Cell healing, time, oxygen rich blood, and fluids will keep mouth, nasal, throat and respiratory tissues on the road to maximum recovery. Brushing a bit more frequently and mouthwash should help control the odors that will continue to be released from both dead and recovering cells.
As for gum bleeding, it is not unusual to be a bit overzealous and brush too much but also be aware that your gums are experiencing some rather amazing healing all on their own and, surprisingly, it is normal for the ex-smoker’s gums to be more prone to bleeding during recovery, not less. Nicotine constricts blood vessels diminishing blood flow, which, according to a January 2003 study, may account for smokers having thicker gum tissues. According to an April 2004 study, gingival (gum) blood flow rate was “significantly higher at 3 days” and within 5 days the liquid sticky plasma proteins normally released by healthy gums (gingival crevicular fluid) had significantly increased and within 2 weeks were comparable to those of non-smokers. But if it takes a bit of bleeding to begin gradually reversing the risk of experiencing 240% greater tooth loss than a nonsmoker then so be it. If at all concerned give your dentist a quick call.
Headaches
Changing brain oxygen and chemical levels, added anxiety or tension, possible temporary sleep disruption, increased caffeine levels, or diet changes can all result in headaches. According to the Ward “abstinence effects” study, 33% of smokers reported having headaches immediately PRIOR to quitting. Interestingly, those reporting headaches peaked on day three (72 hours) at 44%, dropped to 17% on day seven, and had declined to a low of just 11% on day fourteen.
Within eight hours of commencing recovery, carbon dioxide levels in our blood and brain return to normal but it takes time to adjust.
Relaxation, slow deep breathing, extra rest, mind clearing with thought focusing exercises, a warm bath or shower, or exercise may help relieve tension and often brings relief. Aspirin or other headache relievers are available but shouldn’t be taken on an empty stomach. If you are a fairly heavy caffeine drinker make sure you understand that ex-smokers only need half as much caffeine as smokers in order to get the same effect, otherwise your caffeine overdose may actually cause your headache.
Stomach Pain, Nausea, Constipation or Gas
Nausea was also examined in the Ward “abstinence effects” study. Again, although only averages, 16% of participants reported nausea on day one (as compared to 2% at pre-cessation baseline), 11% on day three, 16% on day seven, 9% at two weeks, and 4% on day twenty-eight.
Cessation related constipation was the focus of a November 2003 study. It found that one in six quitters develop constipation and that for one in eleven quitters the problem was severe. The study also found that constipation levels peaked at about two weeks. If you develop constipation concerns during recovery consult your pharmacist or physician and obtain relief.
There are a host of digestive disorders, including cancers, associated with smoking. Intestinal and bowel movements can be temporarily affected while they adjust to the absence of nicotine. Stress, anxiety or postpartum nicotine depression can cause our stomach or GI area to generate pain. Tissues numbed and deadened by years of nicotine use are healing. It isn’t uncommon to experience temporary pain. We can aid the healing process by drinking at least eight glasses of water each day. Increasing the amount of leafy vegetables, roughage, whole grains, bran or prunes in our diet will aid our intestines in cleansing and in moving things along. Moderate exercise may also help with circulation and movement.
Consult your physician if symptoms persist.

Symptoms of Psychological Withdrawal

Cravings, Urges, Yearnings, Desires and Thoughts
The initial powerful cravings that overlay the up to 72 hours of abstinence needed to purge our blood of all nicotine are more creatures of conditioning than actual physical withdrawal. Our cravings are the mind’s psychological means of warning us that it’s time to ingest nicotine to avoid experiencing physical withdrawal (nervousness, irritability, grouchiness, tension, anger, rage, frustration, sweating, jitters, shaking, inability to concentrate and mind fog).
Like Pavlov’s dogs, who he conditioned to salivate upon the ringing of a bell, the nicotine addict’s mind has been conditioned to expect nicotine as soon as it begins to feel any discomfort associated with the onset of physical withdrawal. In response to falling nicotine levels, the habitual mind has been conditioned to intensify “desire” in order to cause us to ingest new nicotine and thereby avoid any discomfort. When we smoked, most of us received a gentle “desire” reminder every 20 to 30 minutes. If not satisfied, the desire would build and escalate in intensity to the point of becoming an influential urge or extremely demanding crave. Our mind has stored the means and manner by which it motivates us to ingest another hit of nicotine. Even after all nicotine has left our body (72 hours), our mind’s crave generator remains in tact and fully functional.
Our Time Triggers – The foundation for our mind’s knowledge of how to escalate the intensity of desire, to cause us to bring new nicotine into our body, is “time.” Although the subconscious mind is believed to be incapable of independent reasoning or judgment, our conscious mind has conditioned our subconscious to realize that time depletes our blood nicotine level and that the onset of discomfort can be satisfied with nicotine. When we feel a crave begin to escalate in intensity, it is simply our subconscious turning up the volume control that it has been conditioned to believe will bring the desired result. But in that the subconscious mind is a product of conditioning and not independent reasoning, if nicotine is not ingested after desire’s volume or intensity control is increased to maximum, the subconscious simply gives up and quits.
It is extremely important to understand that no subconsciously triggered crave episode will last longer than three minutes. But, as noted above under physical symptoms, time perception distortion appears to be an almost universal recovery symptom and the minutes can seem like hours. It’s important to look at a clock in order to reassure yourself, as it may only take seconds to locate a source of nicotine. This time distortion psychological mind warfare is the downfall of many as the rising tide of anxiety has them falsely believing that the only way to end their crave is by means of another fix.
As the body’s nicotine level continues to fall during the 72 hours of physical withdrawal, our mind’s time trigger will continue to be revisited until all nicotine has left the body. It is then that true and complete reconditioning of our time trigger will occur as our physical symptoms begin subsiding and our mind becomes conditioned to realize that time will no longer produce new nicotine. Withdrawal’s peak occurs at the 72-hour mark. The average “starter” will experience approximately six desire attacks or crave episodes on day three. By hour 96 or day four the number of attacks or episodes will diminish to about 3.5. By day ten the average number of daily craves is less than two. In that our time trigger was reconditioned upon depletion of our body’s nicotine, we need to explore and understand the reason for our continuing craves.
Overlaying our time trigger atop physical nicotine withdrawal symptoms can, for some, generate a rather intense 72-hour experience. But it’s even more complex than that, as habit triggers are being encountered as well. Very few who are willing to attempt recovery lack the basic core dream and desire needed to carry them far enough (72-96 hours) to begin feeling their physical symptoms begin to gradually subside or to watch the number of subconscious crave episodes become reduced by almost half.
With a little self-determination, the real battle against physical nicotine addition is over in a matter of hours. It is hard to believe that drug manufactures have sold so many smokers on their “Nicotine Replacement Therapy” (NRT) gradual reduction approach, when they’ve done nothing more than repackage nicotine. They are telling smokers that the nicotine patch, gum, lozenge, spray or inhaler will make them more comfortable and they are 100% correct. Nicotine addicts need nicotine to maintain comfort. The question should be, does NRT’s gradual nicotine reduction approach help smokers achieve permanent long-term abstinence from tobacco? Sadly, their own studies (the results of which they hide from their public web sites and refuse to share with smokers) show that 93% of over-the-counter NRT users relapse to smoking nicotine within just six months.
Our Habit Triggers – Although our basic time trigger served as our mind’s foundation for conditioning it to generate desire attacks, we have also conditioned it to expect new nicotine during certain events, at specific times each day, upon experiencing certain emotions or when we engage in specific activities. The mind is a “steal trap.” You many not consciously remember what you were doing, feeling or where you were when you fed yourself nicotine in the past, but those memories have been locked away deep within your subconscious.
Each of these emotions, events, specific times or locations will trigger our mind’s crave generator to begin pulsating desire when next encountered. Reconditioning each trigger is a very necessary part of recovery and should not be feared but anticipated. Again, the beauty is that our subconscious mind is not capable of true reasoning and that almost all of our trigger links will be disconnected or reconditioned after just one episode where they fail to produce new nicotine. An additional comforting fact is that over time the power and intensity of our desire or crave generator will diminish to the point of becoming almost insignificant.
Almost like a battery gradually losing its charge, after about twelve weeks or 90 days our once powerful craves start becoming nothing more than ordinary “thoughts.” Just like the thought of a “nice juicy steak,” you will have total control over when you discard the thought. You may hear those in “cold turkey” recovery discuss long-term “craves” (months or years down the road) but when you quiz them they quickly admit that it was more like dreaming about a “Hot Fudge Sunday” and it came and went almost as quickly as any other normal desire. What’s interesting is trying to learn what triggered the desire “thought,” as it is usually some activity that was infrequently engaged in but during which the ex-smoker had previously smoked (weddings, funerals, graduations, births, etc.).
Aside from our basic time trigger that has already been reconditioned, most of our psychological or habit triggers need to be encountered and reconditioned before total comfort begins arriving. Our psychological triggers may include such things as the habit of smoking while talking on the phone, driving a vehicle, working, upon waking, before going to bed, when leaving a store, when around other smokers, while drinking, surrounding romance, when alone, after meals, during celebrations, when sad, during stressful situations, during other specific emotions, or upon visiting specific locations (garage, porch, garden, in-laws, bathroom). You may notice a small crave spike on day seven of recovery as you celebrate your first full week of freedom. Almost all of us smoked as part celebrating. Unless you’ve developed an extremely healthy attitude, up until now you’ve probably been doing very little celebrating. When you do first celebrate, expect a visit from your joy trigger, your pride trigger and/or your party trigger.
The most serious trigger is a period of extremely “high stress” such as tremendous financial strain, serious family illness, injury, or the death of a close friend or loved one. It’s a cold hard fact of life that each of us will experience the death of someone we love. We need to prepare our mind now to cope with our “high stress” trigger, as it is certain to occur for each of us. If it occurs while our desire or crave generator still carries a significant charge (the first few weeks), it can be used as your mind’s unjustified excuse for relapse.
Psychological Relapse – Unlike physical withdrawal, psychological withdrawal is 100% mental and greatly within our ability to control. To understand the process can be power in itself. We also need to realize that just one puff of nicotine from one cigarette will revive all memories and conditioning associated with that particular habit trigger and commence the process of re-establishing your full chemical dependency upon nicotine. Whether immediate or gradual, your freedom is over and you’re going back to your old level of nicotine intake or higher. Soon, the millions and millions of smoking memories in the recovered addict’s mind will make them feel like they’ve never tasted freedom. Once an addict, even when we do arrest and trade places with our dependency our probation is conditioned on one simple rule – no nicotine, Never Take Another Puff, Dip or Chew!
Depression & Sadness
Depression can affect our entire being. Sadness, loneliness, disruption of sleep, fatigue, digestion problems, stomach pains, poor memory, an inability to concentrate, a loss of appetite or weight gain, neglect of our appearance, low self esteem, loss of sex drive, irritability, hopelessness, headaches or even a change in bowel habits can and often do accompany depression. Serious chronic depression is often easily treated but does require medical assistance. That being said, giving up years and years of nicotine dependence is a traumatic event, akin to the death of a close loved one, which is often accompanied by the onset of a temporary state of depression.
Although nicotine is not a close friend or loved one, over the first 72 hours it, along with 90% of its metabolites (chemicals it breaks down into) exit the body via our urine. As it departs, not only is our mind breaking an extremely dependent psychological bond, recent studies continue to suggest that nicotine had physically taken select serotonin anxiety busting neuro-circuits hostage. Once the administration of nicotine ends, physical sensitivity readjustment is likely occurring as the brain resumes command and control.
Some degree of postpartum nicotine depression is common and heavy long-term smokers seem to experience it a bit more frequently. It can almost seem like experiencing the death of a friend or loved one or the end of a (chemical) marriage or other long-term inter-dependent bond. It is normal to mourn the loss and go through the normal phases of grieving. As with the end of any long-term relationship, our period of cessation mourning and grieving can be as long or short as we desire. Although it can and often does generate physical symptoms, our underlying conscious thoughts are very much within our ability to control. It can become the primary focus symptom once crave trigger re-conditioning diminishes in frequency to the point where you feel somewhat comfortable in managing or coping with craves. This usually happens somewhere between weeks one and three, but may not be noticed until later if any other symptom is receiving higher priority due to continuing discomfort.
In the Ward “abstinence effects” study – Addictive Behaviors, 26 (2001) Pages 311-327 – 39% of smokers entering the study reported experiencing depression on the day before quitting compared to only 19% of the non-smokers in the control group. On day three the percentage in recovery indicating depression peaked at 53%, and had fallen to 33% (6 points below baseline) by day seven and to just 20% by day twenty-eight – just one point above the non-smokers in the control group.
It was once thought that those with depression smoked in order to self medicate but new research is beginning to seriously ask, “which came first, nicotine addiction or depression.” Education and complete self-honesty are the quickest means of putting postpartum nicotine blues behind us. In reality the real quitting occurred when nicotine assumed neurochemical control and we lost the sense of normal that defined how and what we felt when interacting with life. You are not quitting you, but recovering you. If each reason for feeling a sense of loss is fully explored we quickly begin to realize that our long held rationalization was our way of explaining why nicotine occupied center-stage in our life and an addict’s excuse for an inability to control the uncontrollable.
For example, many nicotine addicts have convinced themselves that tobacco makes their coffee taste better when in truth their coffee’s taste won’t change at all. In fact, our healed taste buds and more accurate sense of smell will allow us to enjoy our coffee or tea even more. The science behind why we feel that using nicotine helps relieve stress, when in truth it both diminishes the flow of serotonin (a stress busting neurochemical ) and generates body acids that quickly neutralize reserves of the alkaloid nicotine – along with numerous other false beliefs – if learned and understood could aid in helping us realize that nicotine was never our friend.
“The truth will set us free.”
It should also be mentioned that a physician’s depression resources include scores of wonderful non-nicotine and non-addictive depression medications that do not have a carcinogen as one of the metabolites (NNK). Among them is bupropion (Wellbutrin and Zyban), which, after subtracting placebo performance, appears to aid roughly 13% of quitters. Wellbutrin and Zyban are both manufactured by the same company (GlaxoSmithKline) and contain the same active ingredient (bupropion). It is very important in using either of these drugs that you consult and rely upon your physician regarding risks, potential side effects, and proper use. You may want to note that although identical, Zyban is being marketed to smokers while Wellbutrin is being marketed to people with depression. I mention this as almost all health insurance policies cover medications associated with the treatment of depression, while few cover cessation products or programs.
Loneliness or Feeling Cooped Up
Akin to postpartum nicotine depression, loneliness is natural anytime we leave behind a life long companion (who in this case was extremely unhealthy and killing us ever so slowly). It’s time to recognize a new healing and healthy companion – YOU! We need to climb out of the deep deep smoker’s rut that we resided in for years. For far too long we’ve severely limited many of the activities that as smokers we were willing to engage in either because they might have interfered with our need to obtain our mandatory nicotine fix (every 30 minutes or so) or because our lungs and body did not have the capacity to enjoy them. Start your new life now! Don’t wait to gradually learn that you’ve been missing so much. Alter your outlook, climb from the ditch and open your eyes. One of the interesting parts of recovery is in learning to live life as an ex-smoker. If we want to stay in our rut and keep waiting for something to happen, instead of climbing out and learning to enjoy all that we’ve been missing, we’ll continue to feel lonely. If we don’t replace our loneliness with the glory of our wonderful new, emerging, and healthy life, we may eventually talk ourselves into returning to the world we know, a world of fix and fix after fix after fix – until death do we part.
Increased Appetite or Hunger
It’s easy to attribute a newfound desire to consume large quantities of food to our rapidly healing taste buds and our revived sense of smell. Truth is that many reach for extra calories almost immediately and probably for a combination of reasons. Whether using it as a hand-to-mouth oral crutch or as a replacement feeding for those now absent nicotine induced adrenaline releases that once pumped stored fats and sugars into the blood with each new puff, the net effect is the same – extra body weight. How can the weight gained during quitting be minimized?
Yes, the foundation of our dependency was a nicotine-induced flood of unearned dopamine. Yes, a mouth full of food will provide a small but short-lived burst of dopamine. But whether a brief crutch and coping tool, take extreme care not to condition your mind to use extra food as a substitute for nicotine. Serious weight problems can gradually sap you of your dreams and motivations to the point of making a 50% chance of a losing 14 years of life look more appealing than that next extra pound. If you do find yourself using food as a temporarily early oral substitute (which is NOT recommended) reach for healthy foods like fresh vegetables.
Even if we leave extra food alone it’s very common to see some initial weight gain in the first couple of days. Unless you’re piling it on, it’s usually extra water retention primarily associated with physiological changes. If so, you should see water retention return to normal within two weeks. Minor metabolism changes can account for a few extra unburned calories each day but they can be more than offset by enhanced cardiovascular abilities resulting from up to a 30% increase in overall lung function within just 90 days and general enhanced performance of the entire body. Not smoking nicotine does not cause weight gain, eating does.
We often smoked at the end of meals. It was a conditioned signal to the brain that our meal was complete and our period of eating over. This cue no longer exists. Its absence may lead to continued eating after our normal meal would have ended. If the leftovers keep vanishing you may need to find a new cue that your meal has ended. A toothpick, walk, immediate brushing of your teeth, doing the dishes, a stick of sugarless gum, or even a nice big deep breath may be all it takes.
But accept early on that should they occur, that a few extra pounds are acceptable and try to be patient. It would take an extra 100 pounds to equal the health risks associated with a single pack of cigarettes. Is your life worth a few temporary pounds? There will be plenty of time to shed them later.
The next few minutes are all that matter and each is entirely doable. There is only one rule – no nicotine today, Never Take Another Puff, Dip or Chew!

Breathe deep, hug hard, live long,