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G’day NOPE .....Not One Puff Ever.... (replace Ever with Min,Hour, Day as required).

NOPE

NOPE

NOPE - Smoking sucks!

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G’day NOPE .....Not One Puff Ever.... (replace Ever with Min,Hour, Day as required).

Congratulations on one full month quit @Brioski! That is AWESOME!!! And thank you for being so supportive of your fellow quitters, it's appreciated

G’day NOPE .....Not One Puff Ever.... (replace Ever with Min,Hour, Day as required).

NOPE!

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Nope!!!

Well done, @darcy!! You’ve made it through sone tough spots and are building a really solid quit. I am so very happy that you found us and are riding this train to FREEDOM!!

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Wtg, Darcy!!!

NOPE

G’day NOPE .....Not One Puff Ever.... (replace Ever with Min,Hour, Day as required).

Nope....

NOPE

NOPE!

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Hey team, sorry ive been awol, i was away for a few days in Glencoe, still going strong, NOPE

Nic free in 2023 Nic free permanently in 2023 Permanently nic free 2023 2023 nicotine free Free in 2023 This is us... If you've got the resources go with whatever sings to your heart. I'm onboard with you and Molly. NICE SEATS, EH? great view, marvelous company, and glorious glorious waking and sleeping without setting fire to things in our mouths. I've been having a rough go the last week.

Congratulations @darcy on another month quit! You're doing great and I hope you're treating yourself to something special today

Thank you everyone for your well wishes and acknowledgements. Stopped by to let you know I am still on the train and saw this celebration. Thanks for lifting me up.

Congratulations Darcy! You are doing great! 2 months is an awesome quit!

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congrats @darcy you are doing it.

Congratulations Darcy! Well on your way to a life free of smoking. Keep it going. Well done and best wishes.

Congratulations, another quality month done. Keep up the great work.

Way to go, @Brioski!!! I love your honesty, your grit, and your sense of the absurd. So glad you are here walking this road with us. Warmest congrats on your first month down… a BIG achievement.

Brioski, Great to wake up an exsmoker everyday, right? Keep stringing the free breaths together...way to LIVE! Congratulations on a month free.

Congratulations on 2 months smoke free, @darcy. Keep up the great work!

G’day NOPE .....Not One Puff Ever.... (replace Ever with Min,Hour, Day as required).

Congratulations Darcey.. 2 months is a great Quit Upwards and Onwards

Hi, @Angeleek. Thanks for raising this topic. It is something I think about a lot. Like you, I'm not a medical expert, just a recovering nicotine addict who is trying to make sense of my own personal experience. It's especially helpful to hear you talk about your experience of no-man's land. With something as complex as depression, I'm not sure what I think about causal factors. But I can say with certainty that smoking damaged my mental health. I'm still puzzling on this, but some things I am beginning to understand: I believe that smoking diminished my ability to experience pleasure. My brain became trained on one thing: getting a nicotine fix. Other experiences faded into grey, and my ability to feel joy receded... as if my nicotine receptors had cannibalized everything else. There is some science to support this theory, though researchers are still trying to understand exactly how long-term nicotine exposure disrupts production/uptake of dopamine and other neurotransmitters associated with pleasure and contentment. Smoking undermined my sense of self-efficacy. Being in thrall to nicotine (or any other addiction) is degrading and dehumanizing. That affected me more profoundly than I realized. I used nicotine to try and suppress negative emotions, like sadness and anger and grief. Such feelings (and their underlying issues) weren't cured by smoking, of course. Smoking just blunted them. Rather than addressing the root causes of my distress, I was pretending to "soothe" myself while feeding myself poison and ducking my own feelings. Naturally, this kind of self-betrayal was another negative force on my mental health. For me, stopping smoking did not automatically resolve these issues. I did not experience the quitting euphoria that some other people describe. And there's still a lot to untangle about why I smoked in the first place and what my baseline mental health is. Like you, Angeleek, I started smoking really young. I was hooked by age 13, so I don't really know what I'm like without nicotine. For people who got hooked when our brains were still developing, are the effects different? I don't know. But I certainly DO know that the psychological damage that smoking caused was real, and that quitting is the only way to heal the parts of me that were injured by it. Whatever else is present on my internal obstacle course, quitting will simplify it. And since I quit, repair is happening. My progress is slow and herky-jerky, but I am starting to cope better with my feelings, beginning to see glimmers of light and joy breaking through. Quitting will make every other good thing possible.

Nope... No can do.

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NOPE! Healthier and Happier!!

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I felt a lot like you at 4 weeks, Brioski--it's crucial, I think, to know that this misery is NOT a referendum on the strength and quality of your quit. I know that doesn't make the experience of it any easier, but it can be tempting to infer that you're doing something wrong or that your quit is somehow just a relapse waiting to happen. That is not the case. At some point in my first year, when things seemed like they were never going to get any better, I came to the realization that I would stay quit even if things never got any better. And of course they didn't (and ultimately got better than I could ever imagine); in fact, I think that was the beginning of a kind of peace and acceptance for me. I wish I had an easy recommendation to get you to that place, but I don't. But I hope you'll hold onto my promise that things WILL get better, in a way and at a time that works for you. I sometimes tell people that quitting was far more difficult than I thought it would be (and I went in with pretty realistic expecations) but/and far more transformative. Given the latter, I'd sign up in a second for double the misery (and it was pretty miserable for me) for the freedom and peace on the other side. We're all pulling for you, friend--stay close. Christian99 21+ Years Quit

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Well done @Brioskigetting through that first month is so important. You will start getting your life back soon enough. For now, staying quit is the priority and you are doing a stellar job. Sending you some good vibes.

Thank you, friends Is it considered a month though since I quit in Feb that only has 28 days? Lol. Regardless, thank you for the messages hopefully I won’t have too many more tear-filled, dopamine-depleted crazy lady posts, but I have a feeling there’s a few more a-coming! Lol