If you're waiting for that ideal time when everything aligns perfectly and quitting will be easy and seamless, I've got some bad news for you.  That day will never come.  It's because quitting is hard and must be done even when life continues to throw us curveballs that the reward is so gratifying.

14 hours ago, DenaliBlues said:

I’m sorry for your hard times @Pilgrim. You nailed it when you named the core issue - addiction.

 

You cannot bargain with an active addiction. “Just this one” or “Only a few puffs because I am so stressed”… they are not real logic. They are rationalizations. Stinkin thinkin.

 

Find your fierce. As @Christian99 said, the only way to stop smoking is… to stop smoking. Whether you’re going cold turkey or using nicotine replacement or medication to quit, it all boils down to the same thing - refusal to smoke.

 

One day you’ll be sick of the cognitive dissonance, the failure, the stink, the wasting money, the inability to breathe right, the chemical enslavement. One day you’ll will step off the merry go round, withdrawal be damned. You’ll defy the beast. And you’ll learn that your addiction has been skewing reality the whole time… it’s not your friend and you won’t die without it. The moment that lightning bolt hits your brain, the moment you refuse to comply… you win. 

 

Time to fight. Time to WIN, @Pilgrim.

^^^^ THIS ^^^*

You will always have problems, sometimes relatively big, sometimes relatively small.

When you quit you expect life to be all rosy and it it isn't. Life is the same. No change, apart from the added anxiety of the quit that we all have went through.

And since your mind is quite smart and like a kid that wants its candy finds all kinds of excuses and there are readily available excuses- the problems, well, your mind uses them and tells you to go back to "fixing" yourself the next hit.

Well, just remember how you felt now, when you broke the quit and smoked, and next time that urge comes, remember that feeling and decide if you want to go through it again.

You are in control, you control your mind, show that crybaby who's in charge!