Remember all of those resolutions to start the New Year a non-smoker? Year after year, many smokers take this vow and keep it until January 1, 10:00 a.m. Well, this year you can make the resolution with confidence. Once you have quit smoking for an appreciable period of time, maintenance becomes much easier than quitting. Simply remember - NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF!

Although urges for cigarettes still occur, and may increase with the preparations and pressures of the holiday season, they are usually not intense or long in duration. Many people get only one urge a day, a week or even a month. They last only seconds. In essence, the cravings last only 20 seconds a week while the other 10,060 seconds ex-smokers are overjoyed by the fact that they quit.

When you now get an urge for a cigarette, it is literally for one cigarette, not for smoking at your old level. Instead of feeling deprived of one cigarette it is better to remember your pleasure in no longer consuming thousands of cigarettes a year. No longer are you spending hundreds of dollars on a chemical dependency which was making you feel ill, smell bad, seem like a social outcast, burning holes in your valuable furniture and clothing, affecting other peoples' opinion of you and possibly killing you.

The potential threat of that first puff is restarting the whole withdrawal cycle. One puff has sent many ex-smokers back to full-fledged addiction, which only the day before they had considered one of the most disgusting of human behaviors. So, when you get the urge, sit back, take a few deep breaths, and consider the alternatives. The urge will pass and you can then pat yourself on the back for overcoming it. Always remember - NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF!