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It won't just not taste good, it won't feel good - nothing like the way you remember. You'll have to smoke a whole bunch in succession to reestablish the addiction to the point where you can "enjoy" the relief a cigarette will again provide. But certainly not the first one. You hear about people that have had amputations, and have "phantom" pains and "ghost" itches in parts that are no longer there. I think that's us. Each one of us carries a memory of an itch we can no longer scratch, not without becoming actively addicted again. Which is a lot like cutting off your nose to spite your face, if you see what I mean.

Why do you think you did? I'm going to start asking this question every time I think of it. Not to make anyone feel bad or dwell on a mistake, but because I have a feeling it's important to the next, successful quit. Can you recall what you were thinking at that moment? Not just that you felt tempted, that's a given, but how you rationalized it. But good for you for fessing up and jumping right back on. You are no different than anyone here, you can do this. Ready? Go.

Man, everything lately is a story about me! About 8 years back I came home at midnight from a summer bike ride, totally dehydrated. I walked over to my papa san chair and threw back an Italian hard candy I had, and as I slumped into the chair my head snapped and the candy tossed back into my parched throat, coming to rest in a perfect seal over my airway, just as I'd exhaled. I immediately started to panic, the fit was so tight I couldn't even draw in enough air to fill a soda straw, and I made the most horrible weezing sound. In a display of supreme irony, the midnight tv show I'd just put on was the Simpsons episode where Homer is choking to death at work on a donut, with a poster of the Heimlich maneuver behind him! It was so surreal, within 20 seconds I was starting to black out from the edges of my peripheral vision. I only had a cell phone, no land line, and back then 911 couldn't get your location from that, and I couldn't speak. I considered running outside and pounding on random doors, but I don't know my neighbours, and am a fairly large guy who had a few days unshaved beard going, so I didn't think I'd get many open doors. As I faded to black, an image popped into my mind, and I ran to the kitchen sink and started scooping handfuls of water into my mouth. That was enough to start to break the seal, and I made an inhaling sound like a zombie coming up for air from the bottom of the sea. And that's the last time I ever ate an Italian candy.

I think it's my favourite meme. It's a real thing, too, that's how our brains evolved, in layers. Beneath the part of your brain that thinks consciously, and speaks in words, and calls itself "me", is an ancient brain that runs towards food, and away from danger, and seeks dopamine-producing activities, like sex and (sadly, by a remarkable biological coincidence) nicotine. When you touch a hot stove and yank your hand away before your conscious mind even registers pain, thank your lizard brain. But that's also what makes it hard to quit. It can't be spoken to, or reasoned with. It's a spoiled toddler off on a tantrum, and the only thing you can tell it is "NOPE"*! *Not One Puff Ever

You're already doing it - posting an SOS is already winning, so keep fighting!! You know you don't really wanna throw away your quit, so don't. This WILL happen more than once - you're still in "Hell Week" - but what you'll start to realize soon is that it doesn't really last very long, and all you have to do is just wait it out. Read here, read at whyquit.com, watch some Joel Spitzer videos on Youtube, and before you know it you'll be back to aces. In fact, without knowing what the precipitating incident was, I'll bet it wasn't really as bad as you thought it was, and that it was your junkie lizard brain trying to trick you into feeding it. Get through today, and when you look back tomorrow, tell me if I was right. FORWARD.

My younger brother was always very allergic to insect bites - even a mosquito would give him painful raised hives. So one summer night as a teenager he comes home from riding his first motorcycle out on the highway, takes off his helmet, and exactly one half of his face is so puffed up and bloated that he looked like a damn alien - his eye on that side was a mere slit, while the other half looked pretty normal. I've never seen anything like it to this day. He'd been riding with his visor up, and a wasp got sucked into his helmet while he was full throttle and stung him just below the eye. Somehow he held it together, instead of screaming and taking his hands off the bars to slap at his helmet like I probably would have. I was pretty impressed.

Still right behind me, huh? Curses! Also, congratulations.

-14

-14

Hey, lookit that! Someone listened to me. :) -9

One month is huge! Way to go.

No! It was funny! Noun... adjective... verb... oh I'm bad at this. Penalty. -3

Go verb yourself. :dance2: -1

-1 Why does everyone turn my "b" backwards into a "d"? I'm a noun, not an adjective. Is it because I look like a duck? That's it, isn't it?

-1 I can't believe I'm in here. Bakon sux!

I don't get it.

Oh, I forgot - for that top one, you can stay in that pose for quite a while with just a mild stretch (ie just barely leaning, and without pulling on your foot), and then alternate it with the pose below to balance it out: ... and briefly grab your toes and gently pull your upper body forward, with your head kept looking ahead instead of tucked down at the ground. Those two took up most of my time.

No trouble! I kinda wing it based on my past life as an active person, but it's all pretty simple and repetitive. The main things I did, SOFTLY, over and over: (yup, I actually got an artist to draw me in ink) - and ...and also... ^^ for that last one you alternate by rolling forward so you're on all fours like a cat with your back rounded, then repeat. I also recall seeing some decent stretch/ yoga routines on youtube, it appears I didn't bookmark them but if I find them I'll post them up. If you want to look just search "back" "stretch" "yoga" etc and I'm pretty sure you'll get hits.

Having just come out the other side myself - more or less, I'm still pretty sore - I'd like to suggest something that I think helped me. I also did the ibuprofen/ relaxant route (over the counter leftovers, relaxant was carboximal), but in addition I cleared a spot on the living room floor and did a lot of easy stretching, in particular focussing on the hamstrings. I've often noticed that when my hammies are overly tight, they pull everything else out of alignment. If you try it, please go EASY, and do many repeats spaced out over time. If you want some specific stretches let me know and I'll see if I can post them.

1) Split "Games" into its own category Games like "chix or stix" (or whatever, I never play them) are based on constantly adding to the thread with zero content, which is fine, but because they're inside "Socializing" they constantly bold the entire category even though there's nothing new there to read. If they were their own category, then the boldface would actually indicate meaningful new content. Right now it's useless. 2) RSS enabled I use my RSS reader for everything I can use it with, it's that awesome. For those that don't know, it basically creates an amalgamated "feed" or "ticker" of all your websites as they update in real time, sparing you the chore of visiting each one separately and refreshing to check for new content. This site is partially RSS-enabled, but it seems only for the blogs, calendar, and images. It would be way more useful if you could actually subscribe to the forums, so that's my suggestion.

Was only a matter of time before this thread went off the rails.

Welcome to the board, Martina! You've already learned one very important lesson - there is no such thing as "just one" cigarette. I don't have any experience with vaping, but my suggestion would be that you use it and the gum as a transition, and not as a permanent replacement - I'm confident most of the people here will agree with that. Aside from that, try and read as much as possible so that you understand what this addiction really means and how to beat it. It's good to see that you're already thinking of helping other people - doing so is valuable for everyone involved! And congratulations on taking the plunge!

Yeah, you're pretty great, I guess... Congratulations!!

you mean "caboose". Got outcompeted by uberoose. Where the hell is Bat?