Glad to hear you are motivated numbersgame. The 7 days to quit is true in my experience. The first three days are the hardest and the remaining 4 get progressively easier.

The reason why I promoted using the patch and 7 cigarettes on day three is that 7 ultra-light cigarettes has 14 mg of nicotine which is incidentally the same amount of nicotine that you will receive from a step 1 patch in a 16 waking hour day (remove the patch when you sleep of course).

All this is is a matter of will power ultimately and you have a choice to make:

If I smoke a cigarette I will have a temporary solution and a permanent problem.

or

If I don't smoke the first cigarette I will have a permanent solution and a temporary problem.

How temporary? 7 days. And the first 3 are the worst of it. Just allow yourself to get a little weird and grumpy and don't respond to your anger/depression/reward scenarios with a cigarette.

Eat more. Smoke less. Your body is trying to say "Eat." Get some good food and make the switch. Start bodybuilding, get some rollerskates and burn some fat while increasing your lung strength.

I hope this helps and wish you Godspeed in quitting.

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That's my $0.02

-Bluesy

1) Constantly remind yourself that smoking is bad for your health and when doing so, be extreme about it.
ex)
I always told myself that smoking made me a social outcast.
- non-smokers hate the smell of cigarette smoke blowing their way and I always had to smoke in a corner like a loser.
- I had trouble hugging anybody after a smoke. My breath smelt pretty bad and most people don't want that smell to get on their clothes.

Most importantly, say it out loud.
When you want a cigarette, look at a mirror and say "smoking is disgusting, and it has made me a social outcast."
Or maybe write it down.

2) Tease yourself
During my first week of quitting, I had a friend tease me with cigarettes.
he would blow smoke in my face, talk about how that nicotine was making him feel good, and even shoved cigarettes in my mouth. He told me that I could always quit another day and there were cigarettes available for me that instant.

Every night, I went to sleep feeling like a boss. I had refrained from something that I really wanted to do.

During the following month, I would have very vivid dreams of giving up and lighting up a cigarette.
But every morning, I woke up feeling even better as it was only just a dream.

3) Water
Whenever I had a craving for a cigarette, I drank a tall glass of ice-cold water, which made the craving go away.
I don't know the biology behind this; maybe the coldness does something to your blood vessels that mimics the effects of nicotine.

All I know is that it worked.

on the other hand fill your life with more useful content...whenever you lite up a cigarete its most usally a sign that you have nothing more fun/entertaining to do...cause if you did you would do it instead of lighting up a ciggarete...

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