As seen, nearly all symptoms of physical recovery resolve within two weeks. As for brain dopamine pathway function, yes, there's likely another week or so of ongoing fine-tuning of the number of acetylcholine receptors needed to achieve balance and normalcy. But any remaining adjustment is minor in comparison to the healing completed.
While the body's physical readjustment is all but complete, the scars of use remain. Deep tissue healing, cleansing, and repair will be ongoing for years. For example, while our sense of smell and taste have mended, the after-effects of years of marinating tissues in thousands of tobacco chemicals may linger for weeks.
The beauty of two weeks is that our physical addiction is no longer doing the talking. Overall, we've progressed far enough that we begin sampling what being free means. And the massive dependency lie we each lived is now vastly easier to see.
While thousands of old nicotine replenishment memories continue to declare that use satisfies wanting, by two weeks the truth is becoming clearer. By now, increasing periods without wanting to use begin suggesting that the only path to bringing wanting to a permanent and lasting end is the one now traveled.
We've gifted ourselves a nicotine-free body. The body's readjustment period is nearly complete. At the same time, the vast majority of daily subconscious use cues have been extinguished, and our emotional readjustment is also well underway.
Yes, our body has adjusted to functioning without nicotine and we're standing on our own. Whether measurable or not, whether appreciated or not, with each passing day the challenges grow fewer, generally less intense, and shorter in duration (see Chapter 13, the comments of 72 ex-users).
Although nicotine assaults have ended and normal brain function has been restored, the scars of the paths and tracks taken by nicotine have been permanently burned and etched into our brain.
There's only one way to make sure that nicotine never again travels those paths. There's only one way to guarantee that our mind's priorities circuitry never again places nicotine's importance on a par with food.
No nicotine today!
References:
All rights reserved
Published in the USA